A New Dawn
by M-Angel 05
Summary: With the Reaper threat gone Shepard and company can begin what they've worked so hard for. Their future now open to the unknown, new discoveries are made and old enemies lay in wait. Spectre duties never end. (F)Shepard/Garrus and OC/OC
1. Chapter 1: Life Goes On

**M-Angel**: Okay, so here the new story. I originally wrote the in a notebook back in 2009 but I didn't publish it on here because I didn't think it was good enough for an original story. I then moved and forgot about it until I found it half finished in a box back in April. So while I've been writting _ Surviving Hero _I've been fixing this story to make it better. Oh, also while I'm at it I asked this totally awesome author if I could use some of her Turian and Rachni mannerisms and culture in my story to give it some spice. So I want to give my props and credit to **Myetel **and her story Spirit _of Redemption_, which is a true masterpiece and would recommend it to anybody.

**HBHound**: I been trappin

**M-Angel**: So leave your true thoughts and feelings on this story. Tell me what you think, how I can improve it, and anything else. So please enjoy the story. :-D

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><p><strong>Chapter 1<strong>: _Life Goes On_

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><p><em>50,000 years ago<em>

In a facility deep underground on a green lush and full of life planet. A being walked into a room and placed a silver crystal onto a recording device. With a deep breath the being began to speak.

"Facility 95627 Sector 8-B12. Species 9762. Subject 1902. Sex is female." the being paused and tapped a button on the device and continued to speak.

"We have named the female Varn'kish after the goddess hunter of old. Her species is quite similar to the ones we found in the _Sol_system. Differences have been noted. Females range between an 5.3 feet and 6.1 feet tall. Males range between 5.1 feet and 6.8 feet tall.

Eara are pointed, unlike the rounded ones in the _Sol_ system. Males and females alike seem to share the hunter and huntress rolls in the woodland areas. The ones in the prairies and coastal regions seem to share roles as warriors, farmers, and royals. We recently found this female on an island isolated on an island by herself.

She has pointed ears, bluish/silver hair or fur on her head and only her head. However we have discovered that there is some kind of energy emitting from the girl, just like the others." there was a long pause before the voice continued. "We haven't decided whether to do live autopsies or a cellular reconstruction of one of the species of this group." Suddenly there was an explosion in the background followed by a war cry-like sound and a cling of metal falling as the recording device and crystal were separated.

Outside of the room chaos ensued as fire began to spread throughout the facility. Species 9762 had escaped the rooms they were being kept in and began hunting down and killing their capturer's.

Years of research and discoveries were lost in a moment as the facilities reactor core was ignited by the fire. As the dust settled afterwards all that was left from Facility 95627 was the three mile hole in the ground. This left species 9762 to grow their own and evolve into a greater force that would one day take the galaxy by surprise.

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><p>In the mid-22nd century being in a far off system named the Sol System began discovering alien data from one of their solar system's planets named Mars. Shortly after this discovery they made another one, a device known as a Mass Relay was found and re-activated. Year's later they came into contact with their first aliens known as Turians.<p>

The turians attacked these humans and a war soon ensued. It was stopped. Only when a group of beings stopped it from escalating. These beings were a part of the a Citadel Counsel. In 2165 humans were granted an embassy.

In 2183, the attack of Eden Prime brought about the beginning of a secret that could destroy every species in the galaxy and the one that would stop it from happening was Commander Faith Shepard a powerful N7 biotic, who had a renegade streak caused by the death of her family and friends on Midior. The Citadel Counsel made her the first human Spectre and charged her to find and bring in Spectre Saren for his crimes against humanity.

Taking her job seriously she brought with her the best fighters for her mission. Systems Alliance gave her the SSV Normandy fresh from the docks. With her team, ship and crew ready Commander Shepard took on her first mission as a Spectre, which would bring her face to face with a species thought dead, a crazed Spectre, and the face of true evil.

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><p><em>Pressent Day<em>  
><em>April 10, 2188<em>

"I don't see it." groaned a muffled male voice who was bent over a console.

"I'm sure if I was a human woman with pleasure centers you would've found it by now." came a female synthetic voice next to him.

"Okay sweetheart that's not fair." he groaned. Suddenly he found the right wire and hooked it to the console. "Bingo!" he yelled as the extranet connections came back up. "Ha! I don't need any tech's help."

"Jeff honey..." the man's head turned to the holo-projector and saw a human avatar of the AI named EDI.

"Have I told you that you look gorgeous today?" he asked the image. The woman's face turned pink. The avatar turned her heart-shaped face away, causing her raven colored hair to hide her momentarily. "Okay, no more teasing." he promised. Suddenly he heard somebody clearing their throat. Turning he saw Commander Shepard standing there with a hand over her mouth. "Aw, dam-n it, Faith ya know I like it when you make a noise."

"Funny." she said with laughter evident in her voice. "How long until we reach Zareth?"

"Well..." he began. "We just entered Arcturus System and Zareth is the third planet here..."

"Twenty minutes Commander." EDI replied with a smirk.

"Thank-you EDI." she said and turned to leave. As she left she swore she heard Jeff mutter "party pooper" to EDI.

Chuckling as she walked down the CIC to the elevator she couldn't help but smile at their current lives. She was married, with a child of her own, and now that the Reaper's were gone peace reigned, but how long that would last nobody knew.

Faith smiled as she walked into her cabin and down into the bedroom area. Sleeping at the far side of the room was her newly adopted turian daughter. She and Garrus had finished the _ascio_last month. Going through the turian adoption rites process had been so stressful, but in the end worth it.

Getting out of the shower and dressing she then heard small chirp hiccupping from her daughter. _Time for breakfast_ she mused as she picked her daughter up.

The little one nudged her mother's neck trying to prompt her to give her some food. Sighing she look at the little one in her arms.

"Give _Mada_a moment." she said as she began walking to the elevator when Joker's voice came over the comm system.

"ETA to Zareth is 2 minutes Commander." he said.

Sighing once again she spoke into the room's comm. "This Joker. Have Doctor Monroe at the elevator when I get down there."

"Aye Commander." he said with a chuckle.

During the ride down she looked down at her daughter who was nudging her neck urgently, giving it a nip every so often to get her point across that she was hungry.

As the doors opened she was greeted by a turian female with vertical green bars painted onto her face. "Dr. Monroe." she greeted.

"Did she sleep well?" she asked as she took the little one.

"Yes. No midnight wake up calls." she replied with humor evident in her voice.

"Good." Monroe replied as they separated.

As Faith entered the cargo bay to the airlock she saw Jacob and his biotic turian rival Marva waiting for her. The female turian looked at her and smiled.

"Ready Commander?" she asked.

"Yes." she said as they were given the okay by Joker that they'd safely docked at the Zareth spaceport.

"Shepard!" Faith smiled as she walked into Anderson's new office. Once the Citadel had been closed and evacuated, the System's Alliance had given the planet Zareth to the Counsel as a new place for people to go.

It took the place of the Citadel and in many ways was better. Many people, especially xenophobic, had thought sharing a planet in the Arcturus System with the Counsel exile and having the Counselor on saidlanet would cause problems. They had been wrong.

Zareth had once been a poor mining planet with no atmosphere in 2155, but after years of terraforming its surface and atmosphere it had become a partially green planet with 80% of its surface water and 20% landmass.

Its landmass was the size of Northern America back on earth. Out of the 20% landmass 35% was easy farm land, 40% was mountain ranges, and 25% was enriched swamplands.

It was both heaven and hell at once with having sweltering heat in the Sothern mountains and snowstorms in the northern mountains, which made many wonder why the Counsel and Counsel Species would relocate here of all places. The question they should've asked was why not?

Krogan and Drell furbished in the dry humidity of the southern mountains. Humans, Turians, Asari, and Quarians flourished in the valley areas. Salarian's and Hannar flourished in the water and with planet that's 80% water, that was good for them. Volus lived in domes in the Northern mountains.

Elcor lived wherever they wanted. Then there was a nest of Rachni that would be moving into the abandoned mines. Everybody was happy here. All in all, Zareth had everything any Counsel Species member would need.

"Counselor." she said greeting Anderson with a smile and a handshake. Anderson smiled.

"Glad you could make it on such short notice." he said, his smile fading from his face. "We seemed to have made a discovery of sorts."

Frowning Faith crossed her arms over her chest. "What do you mean?" She asked.

Pointing to the couch centered in the middle of the room they walked over and sat down. Anderson pressed a button on the coffee table, which brought up a holo-screen of a Mass Relay near a blackened planet.

"A few days ago two ships, one human and one turian, found an old relay. Sending a few probes through these images came back. The planet has human habitable atmosphere. However as you can see there is no sun. It's called a drifter.

It's a planet that has drifted away from its solar system. The closest system is eighteen hours away. The probes entered the atmosphere and we found several compounds on its surface.

All with the Prothean markings and architecture." he paused and pressed more buttons to a new screen showing a small round object.

"Two teams went down. One turian and one human. Both had two salarian scientists in each team. One team found a box filled with crystals. The other found this device." he turned the screen off and looked at her.

"Then three days ago the scientists figured out what they were. They're recording of each and every species that we know of and dozens others we don't know of." he took a sip of water that was in a glass nearby.

"Then they found one of a species dubbed Species 9762. They're like us but with energy readings coming off of them and pointed ears."

"Did you say pointed ears?" she questioned.

He chuckled. "Yes. It turns out that the Protheans found them around the time they discovered our ancestors." he chuckled at Faiths shocked look. "It seems some of our folklore may have some truth to it."

"Begs the question, what else is true in our folklore's." she said causing Anderson to nod.

"On another note," he began. "The mines around the Citadel have been placed around the Citadel along with a comm bowie for when another species finds the Citadel. It also has a warning message on it about the Reapers and the Collector and a way to contact us."

"You think that wise?" she asked. "What if it's a species like the Yang or Batarians?"

He chuckled. "I'm sure we can trust the Spectres to take care of it, correct?"

Faith sighed and looked at the ceiling. "I'm never going to retire, am I?"

"Mot as long as you, Garrus, and Fa'lani are in charge of the Spectre unit." he paused. "Speaking of which how is the location of you base?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Secure." she said as if she was trying to convince herself and not Anderson.

**Date**: _Dorvan 14, 2588_  
><strong>Location<strong>: _Scorpius_System

space is dangerous when one doesn't know where to go. Fifty thousand years ago an ancient race came to this system and did experiments upon its inhabitants. In a bout of rage the inhabitants attacked the strangers for taking their men, women, and children. Some escaped the facility that they were being held in, but most died when the facilities reactor core exploded, thus creating the three mile wide and the two mile deep lake that separated two major kingdoms. After this occurred peace between nations, tribes, and kingdoms came to be.

For fifty thousand years peace reigned over the planet that inhabitants called Gi'ah. The inhabitants themselves were called Creations. They had both short and long pointed ears. Some had blue or green hair. Depending on the regions they came from was how their ears or hair color would be.

Some were warriors with powers that were thought in ancient times to be gifts from the gods, but now with scientific innovations and knowledge they knew it was a defect within the DNA stains.

It was genetic, but they were still seem as the greatest warriors in the world. The made up 70% of the creasing armies in the different kingdoms. While warriors weren't required to have powers to defend themselves the royal inhabitants did at all times.

The commoners took up the lower jobs in kingdoms and could join the armies and could become generals, governors, or senators with hard work.

By the year 2400 creations were space bound with satellites, probes, and ships going off and exploring the system and nearby planets. By 2500 slip space drives were discovered and ships began exploring the nearby star systems.

In 2535 colonization began and by 2588 almost 500 colonies existed. Of the ten kingdoms, each owned 50 colonies, spaceports, and space stations. Orbital Defenses Platforms or ODP's were placed around colonies and moon research stations.

In 2545 the first artificial intelligence was created and its life lasted ten point eight minutes. By 2588 artificial intelligences or A.I.'s were on every ship, both warships and commercial ships.

Their life expectancies are now 75 years compared to the creasing lifespan of 1200 years.

On this day in the Scorpius System a new chapter to their species was about to occur. As the captain walked onto the bridge of her ship she couldn't help but smile.

The _Cealia_was named after the goddess of peace and friendship. She was a mighty ship, with supper mass excel orator canons or MAC canons for if and when they came into contact with the strangers that had dome those vicious experiments.

The captain's name was Narima vol'com, but her offical or court name was Lady Narima Volk'ner.

She was the daughter of a high priestess who had married a lord who then bought her mother land to build her temple in the woodlands.

"Mr. Tolen lets bring the slip space drive on and get this colony cruise going."

The holo-projecter next to her came to life and a man with short pointed ears, black chin length hair, wearing a techs uniform appeared next to her with a smile on his face. "Aye Captain." he said.

Within seconds the slip space drive came online. A mass of energy swirled and opened a portal in front of the ship. After the ship passed through, the portal collapsed and the ship and its inhabitants vanished.

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><p><strong>M-Angel<strong>: So there is chapter one. I hope I didn't disappoint anybody with this first chapter. As you can see its not quite like what most probably thought it would be. So here is the rundown on this. It takes place in the Mass Effect universe, while adding elements from Halo like weapons, ships, and AI tech and the adding the Elvian species from Jak & Daxter. So, there is that rundown. So please tell me what you thought of this first chapter.

**HBHound:** Ashelin(from j&D) gonna shoot Miranda for stealin her look


	2. Chapter 2: Sunrise

**Chapter 2**: _Sunrise_

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><p><strong>Date<strong>: _Dorvan 18, 2588 _

**Location**: _Unknown System_

Sleep on a ship was never the easiest to come by. You either had to deal with the deafening silence that could drive some insane, deal with passengers who wouldn't stay in their corridors, or with recharge who decided to forget everything they ever none of the formetioned reasons were the cause of the captain's distress this morning. In fact Narima was enjoying a nice quite sleep when the Tolen, the ship's AI disturbed her. "Captain Vol'com." came his voice within the confines of her corridors. Sluggishly her mind began to bring her out of her sleep."Captain Vol'com." came his voice once again followed by abuzzing as his avatar took form next to her bed on the holo-projecter.

"Hmm?" was her answer as she opened her eyes.

"We have a situation." he said nervously."We've exited slipspace at exactly zero one hundred hours, as ordered by you. We have come to an unknown scientists believe we have four days yet to come upon the desired system we set out for. Which has left Doctor Zor'dare to question why we are here."

"The Serpent Nebula has always been a mystery to us.I've asked you to appear on it'edge because for one Doctor Vincent wishes to study particals and radiation dust around it for a couple days and because I do love annoying Doctor Zor'dare. He's as annoying as he is apompous-arschloch."

Tolen gasped and the chuckled."I suppose he is those things," he began and shook his head. "however he is one of the most influencing people onboard."

Narima shook her head and sat up in bed, the sheets pooled around her waist as she stretched her aching muscles. Her red silky long sleeved nightgown had also been hikes up to her waist. She chuckled. "He is what I said he is...end of story." she swung her legs over the sure of the bed and walked into the bathroom. She was about to take her clothes off when Tolen appeared in the bathrooms holo-projector."Seriously?" she questioned him and put her hands on her hips.

"Not like I haven't-" he began.

"Not with me!" she interrupted him."Out!" she yelled pointing outside the door. He gave a sigh, but did as she told him. Once he was outside she pressed the button and shut the sliding door. Sighing she looked at herself in the mirrors on her vanity. Yes, this was her ship, so yes she made sure her private corridors had a vanity verdammt!

She then took her nightgown off and traced the silver dragon tattoo on her shoulder. The tail wrapped itself around her arm twice. Its mouth opened and ready to give a battle-cry. Its talons gripped the edges of a cliff. It was known as the battle dragon. Her people, her mothers people, were known ages ago as the Dragon Clan. Now they were the most feared of ancient legends. Nobody on Gi'ah knew they still existed. In ancient times they were the assassins that killed nobles who would've started wars. They kept the peace with their special abilities. Snapping herself back to the situation of today, she smiled. King Dra'cose had asked her to take three thousand of their special Warriors and if they came in contact with the Strangers of old, to kill them all. Her eyes narrowed. Thousands of years ago the Strangers had come to their homeworld. The ancient people had thought them to be gods and welcomed them with open arms. The beings had taken men, women, and children into their ships; but the people were never seen again. Then they'd made facilities around Gi'ah and moonbases on Fi'lo and Vi'o, the moons that circles around their homeworld. Tests were done to their people. Followed by live beings were not gods, but scientists. Then her people, the Dragon Clan had devised a plan. Get the beings trust, get inside the facilities and free as many as they could; afterwards kill and destroy the one uprising the beings left and were never seen again. Now she and others like her were charged by King Dra'cose, to find and kill all of the Strangers. She then slipped on a blue skirt with a white blouse that had her captain insignia on it and pulled her silver hair back into a braid with silver tendrils coming down on either side of her face. She then walked out of the bathroom still in deep thought. The question was, where were they? "What else should I know about Tolen?" she asked causing the AI's avatar to reappear.

"We found something at zero four hundred this morning." he said."We believe it's a station of is another one of those rings, but this one is active and it glows blue. Quite beautiful."

"You know why we don't use those things." she muttered.

"Yes, I know." he quickly said."There were mines around the station, but they've been removed by the sentinels." Narima smiled. The sentinels were AI controled robots that had shield on them. They did things like removing space junk, debris, and dangerous explossives for them. She chuckled, it would take a plasmite bomb in order to destroy one."Also there was amessage being played over and over in several unknown languages."

"The Strangers?" she questioned. Many years ago Doctor Vincent had discovered recording crystals that had the Strangers language on it.

"No." Tolen spoke causing her to let out a sigh.

"Have you deciphered it?" she ask hesitantly.

"Yes."

"Play it." her eyes narrowed as she ordered him.

_"This Councilor Anderson of the System's are a peaceful species known as human. Do not activate this station. It is dangerous! Thousands of years ago a species known as Protheans, were destroyed by a semi-organic mechanical sentient AI species known as the Reapers. They appear ever fifty thousand years and eradicate all organic life in the galaxy. The Protheans were the last species before us. In 2185 they came back to destroy us and our allies. In 2187 they either returned to dark space or we won. We do not know which. This message was place out by the Citidel Station in 2187 when the last evacuated citizens left. We welcome you and your people to the galactic scene and wait for you to make contact with us and our many allies."_

"That is it." Tolan said sounding rather prideful at deciphering this new language.

"Human, eh?" she asked."Sounds promising." she turned her back to the poured herself aglass of Frug'a Wine and took a sip."Did they leave any coordinates to their location?"

"Yes, should I plug them into the-"

"Yes and get Commander Torn and Major Ashlin to the debriefing room." she smiled."Also have Doctor Vincent and Doctor Vor'dare there."

The AI shook its head."Please don't start a clan feud Captain." with that he vanished. "

Just gonna make somebody's day go bad is all." she said as she made her way to the bridge with a smile plastered on her face.

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><p><strong>Date<strong>: _April 14, 2188 _

**Location**: Kepler Verge / Anatole

Anatole was asmall garden world in the system of Zer'is, in the Kepler Verge. It was accidentally discovered by Commander Shepard during one of the searches for the Reapers. When a Relay wasn't found in its system it was decided that this planet would make a wonderful base for the Spectres and their families. Under the illusion that it was a new Alliance Colony nobody would've seen it as anything else. The Spectre base was placed within an ancient impact crater from an asteriod. The land was fertile and new people began colonising elsewhere.

New Alexandria was the first city built in November 2187 located by the sea, followed by Compernium by the mountains and Nid'ar located on an island, as the second and third towns, the tough town, plus a military base located in the ancient impact crater and was called Odar'is.

Currently Odar'is was a very small and quaint many of the simple towns that still existed on Earth. With a barber shop, a restaurant, clothing store, and volus credit bank on the main street. On the east side of town was the research station and on the west side was the Solus Free Northern Side of town was the military base and the South side was were people lived, went to school, the park, and the ranch were the children learned to care for farm animals. Odar'is wasn't a human only town, but instead was filled with different species who worked together, lived together, and loved one another.

During this afternoon in school many children were waiting for their parents to pick them up. An assortment of asari girls were giggling at the human, turian, and drell boys playing handball in the yard. Hanar children meditated on the teachings of the Enkindlers. All the while one thirteen year old human girl sat alone reading her books.

"On October 12, 2186 the Reapers began their invasion with the total destruction of the batarian homeworld of Khar'sharn. Since that attack no batarian has been seen or heard from in that vacinity of the only known batarians alive live Omega and some scattered on Illium. The fifty some batarian colony worlds were soon discovered to have also been destroyed, meaning over one hundred and ten billion batarians have died in one year!" the girl's eyes widened at this discovery. "When Commander Shepard was questioned why she didn't go to the batarians aid she gave one reply."Why should I?" leaving many to believe the rumors that she truly does hate the attack on Khar'sharn, Sur'kesh and Thenisia were being attacked. Palaven's shipyards were attacked and vertically no ship could attack the oncoming Reaper ships. However Commander Shepard didn't forget who her allies were and with a legion of krogan, quarian, geth and rachni ships she came to the aid of her allies and-" suddenly the data-pad was pulled away from her. "Hey!" she yelled and looked up to see a very bemused turian. "Daddy!" she jumped out of her chair and gave him a hug.

He chuckled at his human daughter."First-daughter, you read too much." he spoke with humor in his voice.

"Pada, I missed you." she said and pulled away from the embrace. "And Doctor Solus says that nobody can read too acquiring information in all apart of being a living sentient being."

"True, to a point." he said looking out at the children playing in the schoolyard. "You should be out there playing with others your own age."

"Nobody likes me." she mumbled as she went to pick up her book.

"Perhaps you didn't try hard enough." he said looking down at her.

Sighing she nodded."I know, but I like reading." she complained.

He shook his head and chuckled sadly."I do not wish for you to go through life with regrets."

She smiled."How can I have regrets when I'm doing what I love?" she asked.

Touching her cheek he looked at his wore his Gothis colony clan paint, just like her mother. The dark green swirls on her cheeks brought out the golden color of her hair and the blues of her eyes."It is your choice Laura, but promise me you will try to make one new friend this week."

The young girl smiled at her adopted father. "I promise." she said and picked her book up as she headed to the groundcar.

Just then his omni-tool went the screen, a voice came out of it. "Spectre Screptus, we need you in the debriefing room A in twenty minutes." spoke a feminine voice.

"I first need to drop my daughter off at home Miss Goto. Tell Vakarian I'll be there." he said.

"Of course." she replied."Tell Laura she'll need to wear a jacket tonight if she's gonna visit the Teltarius family tonight."

He chuckled. "Very well." he said ending the conversation. Looking up at the sky he smiled. Life was good.

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><p><strong>M-Angel<strong>: Well there's my longest chapter yet. Hope everybody enjoys it. As always turian language and customs come from Miss **_Myetel_**. The curse words by Narima are German curse words. Also, **HBHound **has decided to leave the site, so I am without a beta...again. Ah, such is life. Anybody that's interested contact me by PM.


	3. Chapter 3: Spectres

**Chapter 3**: _Spectres_

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><p><strong>Date<strong>: _April 14, 2188_

**Location**: _Kepler Verge / Anatole_

Garrus stood in front of his bathroom mirror starring at the face before him. The scar tissue revealed that something had happened to him many years ago. Garrus Vakarian had seen so much in the last five years. First being a part of an investigation on Spectre Saren, a man he had thought to be hero when he was younger, then joining Shepard's team in bringing Saren in for his atrocities against humanity; which lead to the greatest, but most terrifying discovery, the Reapers and the truth of what happened to the Protheans. He had been in the Citidel Tower when Sovereign had been defeat. He had been so terrified that they would fail to stop Sovereign, even more terrified when the tower fell on his CO and friend, but Faith had survived. When a month later he had heard she'd died, he'd been crushed. It hadn't made sense to him at the time why he felt that way, after all she was just a human. He'd ended up on Omega, built a team and pissed the mercs off by taking out their slave factories, red sand facilities, and illegal weapon distribution facilities. Then one of his men, Sidonis, had betrayed him and gotten the entire team killed. He'd been trapped for days on end by the three mercy groups on Omega. He'd never thought they'd team up just to kill him and his team. A miscalculation that had taken lives and almost taken his own. He'd been sniping off the canon fodder when he spotted _her_. Running across the bridge towards him was none other than Faith Shepard, the first human Spectre and Savior of the Citidel; who was very much alive. He'd been running off of stims for days, so until she'd been standing there in front of him, fully armoured, with her team, he hadn't actually believed it was her. Then he'd almost died by taking a damn missile to the face. When he'd woken on the _Normandy _he'd almost thought he'd died, but then she appeared, they'd joked and gotten back into the rhythm. He kept her safe, he was determined not to lose her again. It was after Horizon he'd realized how important she was to him. That he cared for her more than as a friend, but was too scared to tell her. Then he found Sidonis, revenge was all he cared about after that. She'd let him take control of the team, but had stopped him from killing the coward. Sure he'd been mad, but later, understood why she had stopped him. The Omega IV Relay came and he'd gone to her room, told her how he felt about her and if they lived wanted to start something with her. He had been as nervous as a sixteen year old boot camp cadet. She'd walked up to him wrapped her arms around his neck, forcing his head forward and rested her forehead on his. Afterwards she'd said "It's a date, just don't make me wait." After the relay things had heated up between them quite fast. Looking down at his wrist he felt himself smile at the sight of his Tal'mae Wedding Knife. They'd gotten married only three months after the relay incident, six months after her ressurection.

His thoughts were interrupted with the insistent pinging of his omi-tool. Tapping it, he opened the comm. "What?" came his gruff voice.

"Good morning to you too handsome." came Faith's voice.

"Mellis." he sighed.

"Hmm." came her reply.

"Spirits, I miss you."

"Miss you too amatus."

There was a pause. "I take it Melina is asleep." he said quietly.

"Yes." she sighed.

He frowned. "Uh-oh, I know that sigh. What happened?" he inquired as he sat down on a chair in the kitchen.

This caused her to sigh deeply. "Well, do you want the good news or the bad?"

"The bad." he growled.

"The bad news, joy." she mumbled. "Well, bad news is we're being forced, by the Counsilors to start recruiting more Spectres due to us being down to thirty because of the Reaper War. We have fifteen people to evaluate and we're to give the Counsel our finding by the end of two weeks time!" she growled. "It'll take that long just to determine whether they're a security problem or not. I mean Kasumi is good, but her team can't go through fifteen peoples backgrounds in less than twenty-four hours and make sure that the backgrounds aren't being falsified in any way." she gave an exasperated sigh. "I just wanna curl up and hide for a couple days...or weeks."

Chuckling he smiled. "What's the good news?"

He heard her take a deep breath. "The good news is the relay the Counsel decided to open didn't have any backlash attached to it, yet. "

"Yet?" he inquired.

"Our luck has never been _that _good." she sighed again, which was followed by a yawn.

"What time is it?" he asked worried she was overworking again.

"Twenty-three hundred." she said with a chuckle. "Don't worry, I'm gonna head to bed in a few."

"Good."

"I just wanted to hear your voice." she said tiredly.

"Go to sleep mellis, I'll protect the home front." he said taking a sip of his apha.

"Call a meeting of the senior Spectres and tell-"

"-about the Spectre evaluations." he finished. "Go to sleep."

"Aye, aye." she chuckled and cut off the comm connection.

Rubbing his fringe on the back of his neck he sighed. "S'kak." he stood up and walked up to the video comm and pressed Kasumi's comm number.

"Konnichiha." came the voice as an image appeared on the view screen.

"Good morning Kasumi." he said grimly.

"Oh Garrus, you don't look so good." she smirked "I take Faith told you about the evals?"

"Yes, probably should've known you'd know about it." she nodded. "I hope you don't mind, but I need you to contact Spectre Fa'lani, Spectre Screptus, and Spectre Nar'clos and tell them to attend a meeting in briefing room A, this afternoon."

"Afternoon?" she questioned

"Solanna wasn't feeling good lastnight." he grumbled.

Kasumi giggled. "I bet you'll be happy to give your pregnant sister back to Merntus after he gets back from Palaven next week." she said with a light laugh.

"Spirits yes!" he yelled, causing the Japanese woman to laugh out loud. "I am so happy Faith will never go through this phase."

"I don't know," she began. "when you guys were going through ascio rites with your daughter she sure seemed like a belligerent pregnant woman."

"She was stressed." was his only reply.

"Of course." she smirked. ""I'll get to contacting the senior Spectres." with that the comm connection dropped.

Garrus shook his head and left the room to head out the door.

* * *

><p>Odin Screptus looked out the door of the Akete, a turian Normandy-class ship. It was the first of eight that were being given to the Spectres as a gift from the turian hierarchy for saving and defending Palaven during the Reaper War in 2186. The Akete was built in 2184, but after being used during the war, it was retired with hull and structural damage in 2187. Spectre Shepard had requested it and the other seven to given to them when the Hierarchy wanted to build new ones for the Spectres. She'd said they had ten more good years to them once they're retrofitted and fixed up by their quorian engineers. What she hadn't said was that the Counsel had given her the green light of placing eight AI's within each. He still didn't trust that idea, but with the geth as their allies he guessed she knew what she was doing.<p>

Looking down at his omi-tool he saw that it was time to pick Laura up from school. He got into a hummer groundcar and drove to the Odar'is school. Looking out at the town as he passed through it, he smiled. It was quiet in town, unlike the large cities on Illium or Palaven or even Earth. Almost zero crime, except for the graffiti artists and the ocassional speeding car, it was the perfect place to raise a family. When he pulled into the school he saw Laura reading from her data-pad, as always; while all the other children were playing and having fun. _Why am I not surprised? _he wondered as he walked up to her. Laura was one of two children he had adopted when he married her mother Ann. It had been Ann and her two children Laura, who had been thirteen and Jason, her three year old son for years. Her husband had left them for another woman. He was a man without honor, in Odin's eyes. He had found the woman with her wailing son and bloodied daughter on Terra Nova during the war, several months later he found himself pledging a five year manus contract to her and doing the adoption rites with both of her children. Laura loved having him as her father, to the point she wore his facepaint every single day since the adoption ceremony, she also tended to get lost in her books she read, which was why he wasn't surprised she hadn't heard him walk up behind her until he took her data-pad away.

Now though he was headed to the base to find out what Spectre Vakarian wanted, he had a feeling it was gonna be something that would take him away from his amatra and their children again.

* * *

><p><strong>Date: <strong>_April 14, 2188_

**Location**: _Batarian Space_

Four orange eyes starred tirelessly at the small holographic image of galaxy map in the center of the bridge. On order of Spectre Shepard any and all Spectres were to be on the lookout for any batarian ships, both pirate and military. None had been spotted or found, leaving the two hundred and fifty thousand that still lived on either Omega or other colony worlds owned by asari or turians, to believe that their species was on the brink of extinction. Nar'clos had started out as a vigilante, but made Spectre in 2180 when he'd saved Counselor Trevos from being made into a slave in 2176. The Counselor had looked ever so thankful and had asked what she could do for him. So he told her to make him a Spectre. He didn't care how, just to do it. She had done so. Now he worked along side Spectre Shepard, who hated his kind; but liked him. He knew his government had a safe haven somewhere, they just hadn't found it yet. Khar'sharn, had been one of fifty batarian planets destroyed.

Nar'clos looked over to a blinking light on the holo. Upon pressing it, the image of the galaxy map vanished. Replacing it was the image of the Japanese thief. "Miss Goto." he nodded.

"Spectre Nar'clos," she greeted. "Spectre Vakarian wishes to have you be a part of a meeting that's scheduled to begin in five minutes."

He smirked. "Is Shepard gonna be present?" he inquired.

"No, she still talking with the Counselors."

"You mean she hasn't...uh what's the human saying...gone ape-shit and killed them all yet?" he inquirer.

This caused Kasumi to laugh. For a batarian Nar'clos was actually quite friendly. "Not yet, but she is close."

He smirked. "Tell her to save some for me."

"Will do," she smiled. "Connecting you to the meeting now."

The image changed from the friendly human woman to the frightening turian nicknamed Archangel by the mercer on Omega. Oh yes many thought he was dead, but when Shepard needed him to be scary, she sent him out in that ancestors-be-damned blue armorial and scared the mercer into confessions. "Nar'clos." the turian spoke.

"Vakarian." he greeted, though not enthusiastically.

"The Counselors in all their wisdom have decided that it's time to add more Spectres to our ranks. At this moment our security teams are going through their backgrounds with a fine tooth. We don't need more Saren's appearing down the road. We're evaluating close to thirty people, but we only have to give the okay to fifteen." he paused. "Shepard wants all of us _senior_ Spectres to be the ones to evaluate them. Coming up with tests and such."

"And such?" came a feminine voice, the image changed to the asari named Spectre Fa'lani.

"I've never evaluated anybody." he answered. "I only became a Spectre in 2186. You have two hundred years of seniority over me."

Sighing the asari Spectre nodded. "We should test their strengths, exploit their weaknesses and make those stronger, test their teamwork abilities, see who is a leader, who is a follower, and test their mental abilities; if they're biotics."

"We'll leave the biotics to you and Screptus." Garrus said

"Actually Spectre," Nar'clos began. "I am a biotic too, though not on par with a soon-to-be Matriarch."

Garrus nodded. "We'll keep that on the down-low then, we don't want to have people finding out and then not passing the trials." he looked at them. "That was only part of that news. The second part is, we're to give the Counsel our answer for each in a two week time." Pandemonium ensued...

* * *

><p>"How the futtar are we to do that!" Screptus yelled with a snarl.<p>

Garrus sighed. "I don't know."

"I believe this is what you turians call talas'kak." Nar'clos said shaking his head.

Garrus raised a brow plate at that. _I get why Faith likes him now._ he thought. "Yes, but now isn't the time for this argument. Faith's orders came through this afternoon. We're to head towards Mindior to the Prairie Fields. This is where the training courses have been set up, thanks to the quarian engineers in the area. We leave at seven hundred hours tomorrow. Nar'clos, you're to head that way asap. Dismissed."

* * *

><p><strong>M-Angel<strong>: Well things are getting set up for future chapters. As always turian words and customs are credited to **Meytel** and her wonderful story. Also, I've gotten myself a new beta/co-author **xoxoangii**. Make her feel welcome! :D

**xoxoangii**: *waves* hello everyone! glad to be helping out ms M-Angel :) hope you guys loved this chapter as much as I did :D


	4. Chapter 4: Contact

**Chapter 4**: _Contact_

* * *

><p><strong>Date<strong>: _April 17, 2188_

**Location**: _Attican Traverse / Mindior_

The garden planet of Mindior settled in front of Faiths eyes. Yes, it was the planet she'd been born and raised on until the batarian attack when she was thirteen. She'd been lucky to have her uncle John Shepard with her that day. He'd taken her to some caves where he'd hidden her. The batarians had killed her father, thus leaving her in her uncle's custody until she was old enough to enlist in the Systems Alliance. She hadn't come back to Mindior until after the Reaper War to show Garrus where her life had begun, but she just couldn't bring herself to living here ever again. "Ah, Mindior," came Joker's voice, causing her to look at the pilot. "Home of the Alterian Fustian Tree and birthplace of the wonderful Commander Shepard."

This caused Faith to caught out a laugh. "Trying to say something Joker?" she inquired causing him to give her a who, me look.

He just smirked. "Well..." he began but EDI beat him to it.

"Jeff wishes to know if while we are stationed on Mindior if the crew, including himself, will be able to leave the Normandy." she stated.

"EDI!" Jeff yelled. "I can speak for myself!"

"You were taking too long." came her simple reply, causing Jeff to glare at her avatar.

Faith cleared her throat causing both to look at her. "Yes, the crew has leave time." she said as a laugh was squashed down from the little squabble. "However I want a skeleton crew on at all times, incase there's a reason we need to leave in a hurry. Jeff, you haven't taken any vacation time since my resurrection. You're on a mandatory leave, give the Normandy over to co-pilot Stenton."

Jeff cursed under his breath. "Aye, aye." he pressed a few buttons on the console as they docked to the Alliance Station, The Poseidon; which was positioned over the Alliance Training Fields that they were going to use for the evaluation of the canidates. "So ya think these people will have a clue what to do if the shit starts flying?" he asked.

"Thompson is from the Ukraine and is a professional killer, like Thane was. Sadaris, he reminds me of the salarian version of Zaeed." she began.

"That's scary." he commented.

Faith smirked. She kept in touch with Zaeed, who in turn gave her info on mercs who were becoming a threat. "No, it's kind of nice." she chuckled. "Ara'Zora vas Darrib, kinda is like a mix of a krogan and turian."

"Damn," he whistled. "What'd they do, give you the crazies?"

She laughed."Ya'isha Mio'i, she's got undercover work that has me worried about her sanity. She also has been playing with that damn knife since she got on board." she shook her head. "Its people like her I wish Kelly was still with us and not on Earth." this caused Joker to snort. "What?" she questioned, he just shook his head not wanting to open that can if worms. "I'm going to the airlock. Vern'ose, you've got the con."

The turian with black and white facepaint looked up. "Aye, commander." he replied as he took up a position behind Joker's seat.

Faith passed the rest of her crew on the CIC, who were a mix of humans, turians, and quarian. One or two would look up from what they were doing as she walked by to the elevator. When she entered the cargo hold she saw that all the candidates were there waiting for her. These people were a mix of human, salarian, asari, and turians; there were more asari than any other. Thirty people, but only fifteen would pass. Two weeks to see who had what it took to be a Spectre. She groaned internally. _I need a month a least to give a proper evaluation of each. I'm just glad to have the Senior Spectres here to help me._ Taking a deep breath she walked up to the airlock. The door was green, indicating it was safe to walk through it. She turned to speak to the group. "Today you'll be given temporary living quarters on the station. Tomorrow at zero six hundred hours everybody will be transported to the Training Fields. You'll begin with a five mile run then we'll see how well you are with your weapons. Afterwards, that's when the fun will begin." with that she turned and walked out of the airlock where she was greeted by Garrus, causing her to smile.

* * *

><p><strong>Date<strong>: _Dorvan 21, 2588_

**Location**: _Epsilon Eridani System_

Captain Vol'com looked out the viewing window in the mess hall. Her crew was currently eating breakfast, while she was standing near the window looking out at the system they'd come to. The Epsilon Eridani system had been believed by astrologers to have only gas planets in its system because the sun was too far away from the planets or so they had believed a thousand years ago. At zero two hundred hours they exited slipspace and had been greeted by a surprising, but beautiful site. As believed the system was inhabited by three gas planets; however circulating around the second planet were two Gi'ah based planets. They had begun scanning the planets immediately and found the energy signatures of Eco, and lots of it. Circulating around the third planet were two Fi'lo moonsize planets both with inhabitable atmospheres. All four planets were fertile, and had no inhabitants on there surfaces. It was the perfect system to drop off the colonists, leave the colony ship behind for her second lieutenant to be in charge of and leave the system on the _Angelwing_, an A class stealth frigate that had been magnetically attached to the hull of the _Cealia_ along with two other C class frigates, which were smaller than the A class. "Tolen, begin cryogenic thawing of the colonists. Inform Major Ashlin and Commander Torn to go to the Angelwing and begin AI Cortana's awakening aboard. I want the ship ready to go by eleven hundred hours. Have a thousand of our _special_ warriors aboard. I'm leaving second Lieutenant Va'nuse in charge after we depart from the system."

The AI blinked at her. "Aye Captain." he replied. "Do you wish for Dr. Vincent to accompany you?"

"Yes, and do try to keep Zor'dare busy in my absence." she smiled when the AI rolled his eyes at her.

"Aye Captain." he said as he vanished.

Looking back out at the beautiful system she smiled before turning her back to it and walked out of the mess hall towards the teleportation room. Upon entering she was greeted by Commander Torn and Major Ashlin. The commander was a handsome six and a half foot tall young male, muscles where it counted and could dazzle any woman with his green eyes and brown dreadlocks. He had worked hard to become a Commander. From keeping insurrectionists on the colonies at bay to doing undercover work in the drug wars fifteen years ago. Major Ashlin Praxis was the opposite of him. She had red short dreadlocks to her chin and deep brown chocolate eyes. Her father had pushed her into becoming a soldier. She and the commander had known each other for years and it was because of that and only because of that, that she'd even take an order from him. While he was a part of a twenty-man unit called the Deltas, she was a part of a unit called the Alphas. The Deltas were specialized soldiers who went in and killed anything and anybody without a single person catching on that they'd even been there. Alphas on the other hand were different. They went in and killed everything and everybody. No witnesses was their motto.. "Captain." they said in a monotone.

"Torn, Ashlin." she greeted as the three of them got onto the teleporter. "To the Angelwing." she said to the tech, who nodded.

"Teleport in 3, 2, 1." the tech said as there was a flash and they reappeared in the blue and white crystallized teleportation room on the Angelwing. The tech in the room walked over them and began the diligent scanning of their bodies to make sure nothing went wrong. After being cleared she went to the bridge while the other two went about their businesses. The interior of the ship was a light crystal blue color, reminding Narima of blue Eco crystals that use to litter the ground of Gi'ah, but now powered ground vehicles, airships, and their spaceflight ships.

Upon entering the bridge she saw several techs from the Cealia already aboard and working to bring her baby fully online. It was just as the ship disengaged from the Cealia's hull that the holo next to her came to life in a brilliant array of colors forming the ships AI. She looked down at the female AI. Her skin and hair were blue. Holographics appearing on her clothing, which looked like a second lieutenants uniform except she wore a skirt instead of pants, and she had numbers running up and down her body. She looked at Narima and instantly the Captain wondered if Cortana had more of Dr. Vincent in her than she'd been led to believe. "Captain, I've been brought up to speed by Tolen as to where we are headed. All personel are aboard including Dr. Vincent." she said.

"Good Cortana, bring the slipspace engine online and make a heading towards those coordinates given to us by these humans." she said as a tech came up behind her and handed her a cup of tea.

"Aye Captain." was the AI's response.

* * *

><p><strong>Date<strong>: _April 25, 2188_

**Location**: _Arcturus System_

Arcturus System had become quite busy as of the last few years. With it now holding the majority of the Council Species upon Zareth, it had gone from the fifth busiest system to the number one busiest system. This meant more security was needed upon the Systems Alliance Arcturus Station to keep nosey aliens out of their business. However this also meant that a second station was needed to be built for alien ships to refuel and make rest stops. So above Zareth was Z-Station, a small spacestation that had a fueling depot, stores, and restaurants for levo and dextro species. It was during a routine system check that the _SSV Jericho_ came across a strange anomaly within the system.

"Captain Shepard, sir!" came an alarmed voice in the bridge. Captain John Shepard, a.k.a. The Butcher, walked up behind the tech and touched the young mans shoulder. This caused the technician to look up at his captain. The long jagged scar bisected the captain's face from the left side above the eye to the captain's right side of his chin. "S-Sir," the tech stuttered. "I'm picking up very strange readings hidden behind the ice planet."

"What kind of readings, son." came a gentle voice. For being one of the most feared people in the Alliance fleet, John Shepard was also known to have a kind heart towards those he saw fit.

"Some sort of energy field reading. Nothing like I've ever seen. It's almost like somebody just dumped a huge black hole in our backyard, but its not pulling us towards it; more like pushing us away from it." Just then a huge blue and white ship appeared out of nowhere, heading right towards the Jericho.

John's eyes widened. "Evasive maneuvers!" he called out to the pilot. He heard the pilot curse as the Jericho pushed itself away from the massive ship with its thrusters. However the aft section wasn't gonna clear in time.

"Brace for impact!" the pilot yelled out as the back end of the Jericho was hit hard from the side. The jolt shook the entire ship and forced people to fall to the hands and knees. "Shields down to fifteen percent." the pilot yelled.

Picking himself up off the ground John growled. "Damage report!"

"Life support failing, escape pods three through twenty are damaged, engineering reporting a bit of damage and fires their trying to put out, we got heavy damage in cargo, main batteries, port side observation deck and thrusters one and four are completely down." came a feminine voice beside him. The woman had a cut on her head causing her to bleed.

"We're starting to stablize." the pilot sighed.

"Sir, the unknown ship is initiating comm contact." said the tech who had discovered the anomaly.

"Bring it up." he growled. An image of a woman appeared upon the screen, but it wasn't because it was a woman or because of her revealing white blouse shirt that made his jaw drop a bit, it was her ears. They were long and pointed like...like a freakin' Elf! Her silver hair seemed to go passed her shoulders and was pulled back, except for the silver tendrils she had on either side of her heart shaped face.

"Greetings," came her voice in the heavily accented galactic language. "My name...is Captain Vol'com, I...apologize for the damage my ship...has caused yours." she paused, for she seemed unsure if he understood what she was saying.

"I am Captain John Shepard of the Systems Alliance," he said initiating first contact. "We understand you and what you are trying to say." the woman looked relieved.

"We discovered a...placed called the Citadel and found the messages left there." she paused. "We got this language through translating the messages." she smiled. "We are happy and excited to make friends with a species called the Humans."

"That is what my species is." John said and in english he spoke to the pilot. "Get a hold of Counselor Anderson and tell him we have a first contact situation near the ice planet in the outer most part of the Arcturus system."

"Aye Captain!" came his reply from the pilot as he looked back up at the woman and smiled.

* * *

><p><strong>M-Angel<strong>: Well? How was that? I'm excited about the next chapter. *bounces excitedly* Hope ya'll enjoyed this!

**xoxoangii**: FIRST CONTACT? DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNNN *plot twist*


	5. Chapter 5: Making Friends

**Chapter 5**: _Making Friends_

* * *

><p><strong>Date<strong>: _April 29, 2188_

**Location**: _Arcturus System / Orbit above Zareth_

_"This is Emily Wong, reporting for Zareth News. As reported before, four days ago a new species made contact with the SSV Jericho. Its captain, John Shepard, also known as the Butcher of Torfan, received a comm message and began the First Contact process of recording the first message from the unknown species. We now can confirm that the unknown species is an Elvian species known as Creassions. Their homeplanet of Gi'ah was discovered by the Protheans fifty thousand years ago. In the Prothean Species Crystal Library, their species has been catagorized as Species 9762, any other information has yet to be found or given." _The reporter took a breath. _"In approximately thirty minutes Captain Vol'com will be making her first appearance in public and talking to the council. There have been many security issues that have been corrected in the last forty hours; this also includes ten new security checkpoints into the Council city of Zora. Two hundred new C-Sec officers have been put on patrol and both Captain Shepard and his Spectre niece Commander Shepard have been called to escort the Creassion delegates to the Council building in the center of Zora where-"_

Narima turned the holo-projector off as she finished dressing. She wore a thigh high slitted black skirt, knee high leather heel boots, and a long-sleeved white blouse that not only showed cleavage, but a lot of it. On her shoulders were her captain stars and stripes and embroidered on the left side of her chest was her name and rank. After placing on her blue eco tear drop necklace she walked out of her room and headed down to the teleportation room. She smiled as she passed tech and soldiers who looked up at her as she passed them, her heels clicking as she strode down the crystal blue halls of the ship. As she turned into the room she spotted Dr. Vincent talking to Cortana and the tech in the room. He was talking in a fast pace tone, indicating he was nervous. Standing next to the scientist was Commander Torn and two of his grey armoured Delta's. While his two soldiers were armoured he was in a dress pant and shirt outfit. "Commander, you're looking good." she commented as she took her position on the teleportation device.

"Thank-you Captain," was his reply as he scratched the collar of the shirt. "Feel naked without my gun though."

She laughed. "Delta's are still dangerous without weapons. Heightened reflexes from both training and genetic therapy. Feel safe with one Delta, feel safer with three though. Imagine if Delta's were indeed _special _warriors; they'd be even more dangerous, most likely won't need skills, but always nice to be safe than sorry," the scientist said as he too took his position next to the captain.

"Drink too much caffeine this morning Doc?" came a sarcastic voice from one of the armoured Delta's.

Narima shook her head. "No, don't believe in drinking poison," came the scientist's reply.

"Jinx, shut it," Torn said as he finally took his place.

"Aye Leader Man!" he mocked jokingly, causing the Commander to groan as the light surrounded them and they vanished. They then reappeared in from of two shocked humans and several dozen security officers who were stationed on the Zora docks.

Narima approached the male human she remembered as Captain Shepard. "Captain Shepard?" she questioned as she approached him.

He smiled and outstretched his right hand. "Captain Vol'com," he greeted. "It is an honor to meet you." He looked over to the armored soldiers and the scientist.

"This is Commander Davi'Torn and his Delta's." Narima said as the two Delta's saluted the captain and the Commander nodded. "And this is Dr. Vincent, he is our top scientist. The smartest man alive, even if his sanity comes into question now and again." This caused the female next to Captain Shepard to bark out a laugh. Narima stared at this human woman. She wore simple back dress pants and a white top. On her hip was a small pistol weapon that looked to be highly ineffective in any type of battle. On her face she wore facepaint in a blue and white color, and to top it off she had a long knife attached to her wist.

Captain Shepard looked back at his neice and gave her a deadly glare, which she matched back at him. He had ask so nicely for her to act somewhat normal. "Allow me to introduce my niece and leader of the Spectres, Commander Faith Shepard," he said, a smirk forming on his face as Faith glared at him for using her full name.

"Its an honor," was Faith's response.

"I'm sure." Vol'com's voice was tight. "Why did you think what I said was funny?"

Faith smiled fondly. "I know somebody who is similar to your Dr. Vincent."

That got the captain's attention as her eyes widened in surprise. "Oh?" was her response. "Who?"

"His name is Dr. Mordin Solus. He's a salarian geneticist and scientist who has been a good friend and colleague for the last few years." just as she said this one of the floating cameras from a reporter came in close to Narima causing her to back up. One of the Delta's grabbed the annoying thing by the lenses and crushed it. There was a curse from the sea of reporters as the owner of the now ruined camera got upset. "Okay, time to go." Faith said as they began making their way to the sky vehicle that was waiting for them.

* * *

><p><strong>Location<strong>: _Kepler Verge / Anatole_

For the last few days Laura Screptus had been glued to the Extranet watching the Zareth News coverage about the new species. When Emily Wong's camera finally brought up the live feed of the new species, she felt herself go into shock as to what they looked like. The female had long silvery hair that was pulled back into a long braid to her hips and had two chin length tendrils on either side of her heartshaped face. She wore a rather revealing blouse and a thigh high skitter skirt. Her ears were pointed and thin at the tip but fatter towards her ear lobe. The first male next to her had bluish silver hair, wore glasses, but had goggles on his head. He looked older. The second man, in her opinion was cute. He had brown dreadlocks, nicely placed muscles and a curved knife on his back. The thing that stood out between the two men and the woman were their ears. The females were shorter than the males. However, even with that difference, they were all equally beautiful with what looked like flawless skin. '_Wow,' _was her only thought as she watched the people get into the skycar with Commander Shepard and her illusive uncle.

Just as the feed ended Laura heard the doorbell ringing. Sighing she stood up and walked to the front door. Upon opening the door she saw a young turian male standing there with a german shepard sitting at its master's feet. "Hey Laura," the males red facepaint seemed to glisten from the afternoon suns rays.

"Hi Kenti," she said smiling. The two teens stood there for a moment in awkward silence. "So...you wanna come in?" she asked shyly, her cheeks heating up.

"Sure, if Screp is welcome," he said motioning towards the dog.

"Sure." she opened the door wider for both to come in. "Did you see the news feed this afternoon?"

"Yeah, saw it on my new omi-tool." He pointed at the device on his arm. "It's made from a new type of tech. No more orange glow." He gave her a turian smile.

"Just a blue one?" she questioned as she sat down on the couch with her legs tucked under her.

"Yeah-" he said when he heard a loud crash of glass breaking.

Laura went running into the kitchen to see Jason, her now five year old little brother, standing next to a pile of broken plates. His bare feet on the newly cleaned white tile floor. "Jason!" she yelled causing the little boy to look up at his older sibling. Quickly picking him up and sitting him on the counter, Laura began cleaning the floor up.

Kenti walked in and looked at the mess before looking at the little boy. "Did you do this?" he asked the boy.

The boy smiled. "Yes!" he yelled happily.

"That was a bad first-brother!" Kenti scolded. "You're supposed to be helping your first-sister, not causing her more trouble." Kenti frowned at the human boy.

Jason, who idolized Kenti looked as if the teen had slapped him. Looking down at his sister he pouted. "Sorry, Wari," he apologized.

Sighing she looked at her brother who was looking down at the mess she was cleaning up. Picking up the last piece of broken glass, she smiled. "It was an accident and accidents happen, but next time I may not be here to clean the mess up." she placed the broken plate pieces in the garbage. "So no more accidents. Okay?"

" 'Kay," was his response before looking at Kenti. "Can I pway with doggie?" he asked.

Kenti blinked at the small human. "You mean play?" The boy nodded. "I guess." That got a squeal of joy from the child as he wiggled to get off of the counter and into the living room. Hearing Laura sigh he walked up behind her. "You okay?"

"Yeah, thanks Kenti." she smiled.

"Why do you do that?" he asked as he noticed every time she smiled she showed her teeth.

"Do what?" she asked, sounding gingerly confused.

"Show your teeth when you smile."

"Habit." she said with a shrug. "I keep forgetting Turians only show their teeth when they argue or fight."

"And humans don't?" he asked as they both sat on the floor to watch Jason play with Screp.

"No," she said shaking her head. "Only when we smile and it's subconscious. I don't even realize when I'm doing it anymore."

He shook his head as he brought out his datapad. "Ready to do our report?" he asked wanting to change the subject to something less weird.

* * *

><p><strong>Location<strong>: _Zareth / Zora / Council Chambers_

Narima had the hardest time keeping her jaw locked shut at the many council species they'd seen outside the Council Chambers. Inside, however, was a different story. She'd been prepared to see the blue tenticle headed asari, the strange looking salarian, and even the armor-plated turian; but what she hadn't expected was a huge ten feet tall spider, also known as a Rachni Queen standing there waiting for her and her people. Her jaw may have been locked, but her mind was anything but quiet. _"I sing peaceful song to you warrior-singer."_ She heard the voice in her mind and it was like hearing an entire orchestra played very loudly, yet beautifully in her mind. "What the-!" she exclaimed, backing away from the counselors.

The turian counselor shook his head. "You'll have to forgive Sincere-Singer, her translator is sick and we hadn't found a replacement yet."

"Hmm...telepathic? Interesting." Dr. Vincent said rubbing his chin.

"I was startled is all, wasn't..." she looked at the Rachni Queen. "..wasn't expecting that."

"Your species is quite welcome here," said the blue skinned woman. "I am Trevos A'ruli of the Asari Republic."

"I am Mevoln Peri of the Salarian Union," said the being on the right side of Trevor's. It sounded oddly feminine, but looked male.

"I am Livarus Pilvokian of the Turian Hierarchy," the scaled being on Trevos' left side spoke, he had black and white striped facepaint on his entire face.

"I am David Anderson of the System's Alliance," the human said with a smile. "We spoke briefly a couple days ago."

"I am Sincere-Singer, I am the daughter of Sings Life, who was saved from death by Freedom-Singer." The Rachni Queen's _voice_, seemed quieter, but still made Narima's entire body shake and tremble.

"I am Captain Narima Vol'com of the Creassion people, and we are quite happy to meet some new friends and possibly future allies." She paused. "We have searched for years for signs of intelligent life in this galaxy. We have also searched for those who long ago came to our homeplanet and violated our trust."

"Ah, the Protheans," Mevoln murmured.

"Protheans?" she inquired. "You know them?" This caused the Deltas to become alert.

"Nobody knows the Protheans due to the fact that they were destroyed fifty thousand years ago by a synthetic-organic race known as the Reapers," the salarian counselor explained.

"Yes, we heard the messages that were being cycled around the Citadel," she said causing the Councilors to stiffen. "We left it how we found it and came here." That let everybody relax.

"Thank the spirits," Livarus murmured. "That place isn't good."

"We got that from your message," was her reply.

"We'd like to talk to you about your technology and possibly sharing it with us," Trevos began but was interrupted by Narima.

"What would we get in return?" she asked crossing her arms over her chest.

"We'd share our technology with you, including ship, medical, educational, scientific, genetic, and weaponry technologies," Anderson said with a smile.

"We've seen some of your weapon tech," she said, pointing at the Spectre and the guard. "Not impressed." This caused the councilors to shake their heads. "We may trade scientific tech, along with the genetic and medical technology. Certain things will be off limits due to it belonging to our own allies among our own people. As for ship technology..." she looked at Dr. Vincent to explain.

"Upon surveying the SSV Jericho when we came into the system, I had my techs do a scan of it." He scratched the back of his head. "Our findings were this: you base almost all your technology upon what we considered those that had betrayed our trust fifty thousand years ago. However, the dark matter engine was quite nice to examine, if only by it propulsion system and the particles it leaves behind. Our own FTL engine and Slipspace engines are quite different. If we get permission from the planetary leaders back on Gi'ah to share that tech, you'll no longer be held back by using the old tech. Newer tech is always welcome, but from my scans, I can tell that almost 79% of your tech may be based on...Prothean tech, which we don't use at all."

"So, what do you want?" Anderson asked.

"Planets, mining abilities and terra-forming technology," Dr. Vincent said without thinking. "Trading ports, hmm..."

"We'll hash that out when our planetary leaders get here," Narima said. "This was just a meet and greet."

The councilors looked at one another. "Then it's agreed," Trevos said with a smile. "While you are waiting for your leaders to get here, we welcome you and crew to Zareth."

Narima nodded. "Thank you, councilors." She turned to leave.

_"Do not sing the song of distain no more warrior-singer,"_ came the Rachni Queens voice in her head. _"Let your song be your own, not one that is contained by others. Share your song with your warriors and let them sing their songs to you." _With that the symphony of colors and sounds vanished from her mind.

"Okay," she said, unsure of what else to say. As she walked out of the Council Chambers, she saw a perky red headed woman bounce over to her group.

"Hi, I'm Kelly Chambers, Councilor Anderson has asked for me to show you around Zareth." The woman said this all the while smiling.

Looking at Commander Shepard she spoke softly. "Is she an Android?" This caused the human Commander to begin laughing while the red head just smiled.

* * *

><p><strong>M-Angel<strong>: ah, that was fun writing...

**xoxoangii**: food for thought: how do you guys picture Mordin and Dr. Vincent having a conversation with each other? Oh, the possibilities.. *starts pondering*


	6. Chapter 6: Uncertain Future

**Chapter 6**: _Uncertain Future_

* * *

><p><strong>Date<strong>: _May 5, 2188_

**Location**: _Zareth / Zora / Council Chambers_

Faith looked at the five leaders of Gi'ah in their many different silk robes. All looked different from one another. The king of the northern mountains wore blue silk robes with white fur embroidering it, had short ears and bluish white hair. The king of the south, known as the Wastelands wore a pair of simple brown trousers and a leather vest the showed his muscular chest; which had many of the asari reporters staring. He had longer, pointier ears, with chin legnth greenish yellow hair in dreadlocks. The king of the eastern sea wore green silk robes, his ears were long, but not pointed, and had reddish orange short hair. The king of the western sea work blue silk robes with fancy embroidery on it, had short ears, and long blue hair to his waist. To say those four looked odd was the ignore the fifth leader. She was the queen of Skycity and wore a white elegant gown that reached the floor and trailed behind her. It was embroidered with strange symbles on it. She had pixie-like legnth blonde hair, short ears like Captain Vol'com, and strange yellow glowing tattoos going up and down her bare arms. It was her that spoke first. "It is an honor to meet the Grand Council that Captain Vol'com spoke of to us. She seemed so very happy to finally encounter not one, but many intelligent beings. I am Queen Nari of Skycity and Sky Kingdom." As she spoke her voice seemed to calm even the most nervous person in the room, Dr. Vincent, which caused Faith to smirk. She had to admit, even her nervousness seemed to evaporate.

"Sky Kingdom?" Trevos questioned.

"Yes," was her reply. "My kingdom floats through the sky with the usage of blue eco. It is an electrically based eco source."

"Are there others?" Livarus questioned.

This is when Dr. Vincent spoke. "Oh yes! Blue eco, used primarily as an electrical source, but is also used by others to speed up electrical currents, thus is able to be used in the engines onboard space flight ships; but also able to be used to bend light, thus creating cloaking devices, pimariliy used for stealth ships. Yellow eco, harder to use, but is mostly used by Wasteland nation in their pistols, snipers, blaster mods, and so forth. Red eco, makes things stronger by a hundred fold. Used in making ships sturdier and practically inpenetrable. Green eco, used by healers, doctors, and monks for the healing patients, however has been found to be usable for force shield technology." He took a breath. "Dark eco, very unstable eco, is deadly to some, spreads easily from one area to another, but in recent years has been used to fuel shields in cities, keeps harmful creatures from entering any city. Creatures know Dark eco is dangerous and don't want to mess with the probability of possibly poisoning itself or others of its kind." There was another pause, as if he wasn't sure if he should continue but Queen Nari gave him a nod. "Light eco, purest eco source on Gi'ah. Created only when blue, yellow, green, and red combine in natural places. Can be used to do everything that the four others are used for, however because of the pureness of it, it is wise to only use small amounts. Use large amounts and explosions...are inevitable."

Faith groaned inwardly at Dr. Vincent's speech. He spoke fast, if not as fast as Mordin and judging from the looks on the Counsilor's faces she was guessing only the salarian counsilor actually understood him. She coughed to hide a laugh, which caught Anderson's attention. "Alright," Anderson said. "Though I must admit I only understood a fraction of that, I get the jist of it. You use eco in your technology to either power you vehicles, weapons, cities, or ships."

"Correct," was the scientist's cheerful reply.

"Sounds like element zero." Mevoln mused. "Only Eco is not usable for beings to use like element zero is for biotics."

That got the Wasteland king's attention. "Biotics?" he questioned.

"A biotic is somebody who has been exposed to element zero and gain certain...abilities from it." Trevos said. "Asari were the first species to be known as biotics, but then turians were found to have the ability, some salarians, and now humans."

"Ah, so biotics are like Channelers." he said. "So, yes, it is usable in the same way, only channelers are born with the ability from their genetics, not from exposure."

"Really?" Livarus inquired, which got him a nod from the king. "I am sorry, I didn't catch your name.

"I am King Damascus, my people are known as Wastelanders. We live in the desserts of our world." he said proudly. "We are desert warriors."

"Sounds like the Drell." Livarus mused, causing the king to raise an eyebrow. "They too are a warrior and desert species. Only their planet is no longer habitable."

"How sad." Nari responded.

"I am King Zenro." the king of the northern mountains said. "We were a bit upset to find out you use **Their** technology and have talked amongst ourselves..."

"We have one request when it comes to making a treaty with your people." the king of the east interrupted.

"That you get rid of **Their** technology." finished the king of the west.

"We will help you in understanding our own, including the slipspace technology." Nari assured.

"But we won't make a treaty with any species who uses Prothean technology." Damascus said as if that words was like acid in his mouth.

"That could take years!" Trevos exclaimed looking alarmed.

"Years? It would ruin economies." Livarus groaned.

"Economically yes. It could take years to recover." Mevoln said detatchedly.

"There will be riots." Anderson sighed heavily. "However, we have been talking about getting away from Reaper technology. Being that the Protheans based their tech on that, so did all of us. In making this treaty we'd gain a way to get new tech that's not based on Reaper tech. We'd be able to start our economies renewed."

"If we slowly brought in their technology and slowly got rid of the Reaper tech we may be able to ignore a galaxy wide economic bust and begin a new era of technological discoveries." Mevoln finished Anderson's thought.

"It's risky." Livarus muttered. "But we turians do like a challenge."

_"My kind do not sing the notes of those who soured our songs long ago. We shall never use their songs in our battles or memories. We sing new alliances and await new songs to be joined with our own"_ Sincere-Singer sang in everybody's minds.

"Incredible." Damascus whispered in awe.

"If you need time..." Nari began looking at the asari woman.

The asari counsilor sighed. "No, it seems it has been decided already." she said sounding less than happy. "Beginning in the next few months we will begin intergrating your technology and gretting rid of the old Reaper and Prothean technolgy."

"Wonderful!" King Zenro exclaimed happily. "We shall invite your top scientists to Gi'ah to study our tech."

"Captain Vol'com invites some to join us on the Angelwing." Dr. Vincent said happily.

"Commander Shepard will chose a team to go with Dr. Vincent." Anderson said.

"This meeting is adjured." Trevos said sounding sad.

* * *

><p><strong>Location<strong>: _Attican Traverse / Mindior_

"David Thompson, fail." Odin muttered as he dropped the datapad on Garrus' desk, causing the other turian to raise a browplate for the reason. "He leaves his team behind every single time. I think Ara'Zora had a suit breach because of him in this last round. No, strike that. I know it was because of him. He not only left his team behind, but endangered one of them."

Garrus nodded. "I've noticed he's not exactly a teamplayer." he sighed. "Ever since Eden Prime was attacked in eighty-three the Counsil wants all Spectres to have at least one other Spectre with them."

"Makes sense." Nar'clos responded as he sat his datapad down. "Ya'isha Mio'i, pass. Is a teamplayer, went back for injured teammate Ara'Zora when she had a suit breach and _applied_ medical needs to salarian teammate Mordin Valis when he got _shot_ and placed a rather strong biotic barrier shield around both injured teammates and got them and herself to safety while maneuvering through the complex and outside maze."

"What about her mental evaluation?" Odin inquired. "Shepard was worried about her sanity."

"She's as sane as you or I my friend." he said as some of his aristocratic accent started showing.

"In otherwords she's sane just as long as she's on our team." Garrus grunted with a turian equivalent of a smirk, causing the batarian to laugh.

Fa'lani dropped her datapad. on the desk as well. "Ara'Zora Va's Darrib, pass. She's as excellent teamplayer. She has leadership qualities, has wonderful biotics and works well with a team." she dropped another datapad. "Mordin Valis, pass. He may be a fast talker; even for a salarian, but fixes problems quickly, comes up with solutions even faster and is a teamplayer. He has leadership problems, doesn't like giving orders, but rather take them. He works fast, excellent knowledge of explosives and uses that knowledge very well."

Garrus places a datapad down. "Lukas Kjellson, pass. Excellent hand to hand combat, hell he took on Grunt like the tank-bred krogan was nothing. Goes head first into a fight and used that deadly looking knife of his twice, with perfect accuracy. Took down the mechs so his twin Linnea could hack into the turrets and turn them on the _enemy_." he placed down another datapad. "Linnea Kjellson, pass. Excels in hacking, stealth, and can snap a grown man's neck in half. Took her all of two seconds to hack into mechs and turrets before turning them on the _enemy_." he sighed.

"Then there's Yesa Harill, the volus." Nar'clos said sitting down another datapad, causing everybody to groan.

"I get the feeling she likes being considered a son-of-villi." Garrus grunted as he shook his head.

"She has excellent biotic control over her powers, is very powerful in a battle, can warp the light around her to the point she can go invisible without a stealth generator, and is an awesome fighter when it comes to using explosives, heavy weaponry, and so forth." Fa'lani said with a grim smile.

"She gets bored very easily, doesn't have leadership qualities, has a worse sense of humor than Moreau." Odin groaned as he shook his head.

"True." Nar'clos replied. "However, she works well in a team. Can get them organized very quickly. Keeps the team morale up. Kills efficiently and strategically."

"Pass?" Garrus asked, causing everybody to nod in agreement, though reluctantly.

"Who knows, she may be another Blasto." Nar'clos grinned.

"Spirits no." Odin groaned.

"That's our fifteen." Fa'lani stated looking at the piles of the passed and failed.

"Yes, I'll contact Shepard." Garrus stood to leave.

"Has anybody gotten to see these new species yet?" Nar'clos asked, his batarian eyes turning to Odin.

"Yes, Laura; my daughter, has been sending me the vid feeds." Odin smiled. "They look like humans, except for the unusual ears."

"Unusual ears?" he inquired. Odin brought it up on his omi-tool and showed everybody a frozen feed of Captain Vol'com. Garrus choked at her outfit. "Scandalous." the batarian said with a smirk. "This should be interesting."

"Hopefully this'll be the last first contact scenario for the next fifty years." Odin said with hope.

"Don't count on it." Garrus growled. "Shepard said something awhile ago about an old Prothean facility being found by both the Alliance and Hierarchy. If these people existed in the Prothean records then sooner or later the other recorded species will show up."

"Oh Garrus, don't say that." Fa'lani groaned, the asari shook her head. "We just had the Reaper War, one species showing up afterwards we can deal with; but more? I don't know."

"Well, at least their not like the Yang." Nar'clos commented as they began to go their separate ways.

* * *

><p><strong>M-Angel<strong>: Well there's the chapter. What'd ya'll think? I'm ever so curious! Not much happened, but it's start!

**xoxoangii**: Volus spectre... hm. I shall ponder that while I'm at Disneyland tonight. :) Hope you guys liked it!


	7. Chapter 7: The Angelwing

**Chapter 7**: _The Angelwing_

* * *

><p><strong>Date<strong>: _May 5, 2188_

**Location**: _Zareth Docks_

Faith had been surprised that she'd been chosen to go aboard the _Angelwing_ with a team of her choice, but was relieved that her uncle wasn't coming. So as soon as the delegates had left she'd opened a comm link with the Normandy. "Joker," she spoke.

"Here Commander." was his reply. "Need pick up?"

"No, send down Tali, Mordin, and Marva," she said as she got into her aircar to head towards the Zareth Docks. "Tell 'em we've been invited to the Angelwing. You're to come too, I want you to be getting acquainted with their pilots."

"But Mom, I don't play good with other pilots," he complained jokingly. In her mind she could picture a pouting Joker, which caused her to laugh."Mission accomplished," she heard Joker whisper. "Be there in two shakes of an asari hooker."

"Bad taste Joker, bad taste." she snorted at that image and turned the vehicle on and preprogramed the route to take. When she arrived at the docks her group was waiting for her, along with Captain Vol'com, who seemed to be just standing back away from the group.

"Shepard, good too see you. Have much I need to talk to you about. Can wait," the salarian scientist said as he greeted her.

"What is it Mordin?" she inquired as she looked at him.

"Been asked by Dalatrass to be made available for a breeding contract. Never done so in earlier stages of life, however since survival of Reaper War have saved krogan, have helped with curing many viruses caused by Reapers and their Collectors, life is almost spent. Life will have been wasted if nobody remembers in the century to come as to what I have done. Have krogan genophage legacy and its cure to be remembered, but no genetic legacy."

"So, you want to have a child with your Dalatrass?" she asked with a smile.

"Not so much want, but need. Yes." He blinked at her.

"Well, it's your choice, but I don't see why not," she said with a shrug.

"Excellent, will get back to Dalatrass after return to Normandy. Probably won't live long enough to see offspring graduate, will need to find a guardian for it when my inevitable death happens," he said with a dismissive voice.

Faith shook her head as she walked over to the waiting Captain. "Captain," she greeted Vol'com with a salute, whiched caused the creasion to chuckle.

"Commander, just call me Narima if you must have a name to call me." she placed her hand on her hip. "I do hate formalities."

"Who doesn't?" Faith asked with a laugh.

Narima chuckled as she looked at Shepard and her chosen group. "So, who are these?" she nodded to the group.

Faith smiled. "My friends and experts in their fields." She turned to Joker. "Starting off is ex-Alliance Flight Lieutenant Jeff _Joker_ Moreau, my pilot and ship jokester." Joker also saluted the captain. "My Chief Engineer Tail vas Neema vas Normandy, my shotgun specialist and best friend." Tali just waved at the captain. "My top scientist, former STG Scientist, Doctor Mordin Solus." The doctor smiled and nodded to the captain. "And finally second Lieutenant Marva Paselus, my weapons specialist and combat specialist." The turian gave a curt nod.

"Hmm, quite the group you have there." Narima smiled. "And here I was expecting just humans. We'll stock some food for your species as well before we take off."

"Take off?" Tali inquired nervously.

"Yes, you are all invited to our newest colony in the _Epsilon Eridani System _which has just been named Mor'ah." She smiled proudly as she brought out a small yellow crystal that was embedded in a yellow/orange metal. She pressed the crystal which caused a bright light to engulf their entire group. When the light vanished the group found themselves in a huge room with blinking lights, blue crystal-like structures which people were sitting on like chairs. When one stood the chair sunk back into the floor. The next thing the group noticed was that they couldn't move.

The one who had stood came over to their group and began scanning them with an unknown device. The person was female with aqua colored hair and wore a scientists or doctors jacket. When she gave a nod to the technician behind her that was when they suddenly could move. They flexed their fingers, toes and muscles before following the captain. "This is our teleportation room," she began as they followed her our of the room down the hall to another room which opened up to a huge cargo area. "This is Cargo Bay C, its right below Cargo Bay A and B. Above them is Hangar B, where we have our fighter ships. On the opposite side of the ship is Hangar A, where we store rescue pelicans and dropship pelicans. The two types of pelican ships may look alike on the outside but are different on the inside. When we get up there I'll have my Flight Lieutenant show you what they look like."

"I take it the Cargo Bays are only storage areas." Faith concluded as she took in the sheer size of the bay; which, if she was correct, could fit three Mako's or two Hammerhead's in them.

"Yes." Narima said with a smile. "Down here are our weapons and medical storage."

"Lot of crates for just that stuff." Joker mused as he took in the sight of wall to wall crates.

"You haven't seen our weapons," was her only reply as she shut the doors to the room and continued down the hall with the group following her. She came to a third door that lead them to engineering.

"Keelah!" Talia gasped at the site of the large engines and the size of the room.

"This is engineering," Narima said just as a crew member began walking up to her. "Now I don't really understand how everything works, but that's why I have a chief engineer who does." She smiled as the man stood before them. "This is Chief Engineer Sethin Vesnus. I believe he and Miss Tali will enjoy talking with each other."

Faith chuckled as her quarian friend practically ran to the man and began asking her questions. "How does it run?" was the first of many to come.

Narima chuckled. "Right, let's leave them be." she said heading out of the room with the rest of the group.

"How do you stop from getting turned around in all of this blue crystal color?" Joker asked. Narima pointed up causing everybody to look up and notice words above the door in a language they couldn't read. "Great." Joker grumbled.

"Our linguists are working on matching up our alphabets right now," she said. "Once that is done, your omi-tools will be able to scan the door names in order to figure out where you are." She smiled. "If it helps, everybody has a hard time on a ship the first time. Usually always getting lost or turned around in the first twenty-four to thirty-eight hours." That caused Joker to sigh and shake his head. "This way to the elevator." She pointed to the last room on that level. "The Angelwing isn't as large as it looks. Its mostly for protection. Grade A Ferrosteel is the strongest metal on Gi'ah, it's almost impossible to destroy."

"Almost?" Faith inquired with a raised eyebrow.

She sighed. "It does have some weakness to it, but that's why the ships hull is almost twenty feet thick, then lined with barrier walls and weakness detectors. Then of course the sentinels keep an eye on things outside of the ship by scanning it after each jump through slipspace."

"Sentinels?" Marva inquired.

"They're dumb AI controlled robots," she said. "Our dumb AIs are like your VIs, only slightly smarter. They're programmed to do one thing and only do that. Some can be programmed to do multiple jobs, but it's rare. Our smart AIs aren't really programs, they're created by brain scans from intelligent people. The smart AI of this ship is Cortana, who was created by several scans from Doctor Vincent's brain. Then there are the AIC. They're created when a person kinda 'dumps' their brain into an eco grid. These AIs are extremely rare and are only created to protect a city. One AIC can do a million tasks in a short amount of time whereas it would take days or weeks for an organic to do the sames tasks."

"What does AIC stand for and are all your AIs sentient?" Mordin asked while looking a tad nervous.

"Artificial Intelligence Component and No," was her reply as the elevator door opened. She stepped onto the translucent disk and waited for the others to do so. She touched the holographic display on the wall. "Next is crew deck, medbay, and lavatories."

"So none of your AIs are sentient?" Faith asked as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"I didn't say that." Narima smirked. "AICs and smart AIs are sentient, our dumb AIs aren't."

"Do they go into ramancy?" Mordin inquired.

"Yes, but we always catch 'em before they do," she explained as the elevator stopped and let them out on the crew deck. "The first generation AIs died off after thirty minutes of life or when their jobs were complete. We now are in our tenth generation AIs who have a lifespan of seventy to seventy-five years, short in comparison with our own."

"Yes, and that would be?" Mordin inquired now very interested.

"Eleven hundred." came a voice ahead of them.

"Dr. Vincent." Narima acknowledged.

"Captain." he smiled. "Creasions live close to eleven hundred years. Some, sages mostly, have been known to live fifteen hundred, but overall only eleven hundred years. Of course that's not counting the common people who can't afford the living expenses to live that long, so the average creasion is expected to live around a thousand years, no more, no less." he shrugged.

"Interesting." Mordin mumbled. "Creasions must have the same slow aging that asari have or grow normally like krogan do, but don't get the blood-rage that krogan have. This could also mean because of this the channeler gene be something gained with age?"

"Nope," Vincent answered. "Channeler gene's are inherited from father or mother to child. Its also a mutated gene that one is born with. Not something that can be gained with age, however the older a channeler is the more powerful. The more powerful, the more dangerous. This is also why channelers, while young, are found and made into special warriors; who then protect villages, cities, or even our ships from those who wish to do harm. Then when older, fighting urges are no more and they begin to settle down and have families of their own. Some, however, do not allow their children to become warriors because of their own unpleasant memories of battles fought and enemies killed. Therefore tracking devices are always placed with special warriors so that when they have families, we can check in on them."

"You steal children from families?" Mordin inquired a bit shocked. "Sounds much like Subject Zero's life."

"Negative." was his reply. "We do not take children without parents knowledge. We give warning, then if warning is ignored, we come and collect the children once they've reach apropiate age."

Narima coughed. "Uh, yeah," she looked at Faith. "You're right, they are alike."Faith shook her head. "Why don't we leave them be." Narima stated.

"Mordin," Faith called out. "No making a doomsday device."

"Wouldn't dream of it Shepard, too small of a ship to make an appropriate sized one anyways." He smiled and went back to talking with the scientist.

* * *

><p>After another hour of going through an armoury, only to leave Marva behind with creasion weapons expert, they ended up at the Pelican Hangars where Joker looked like a kid in a candy store as he began questioning not one but two Flight Lieutenants about the capabilities of each bird, what the controls looked like, what kind of fuel they use, what their weapons were and so on. Faith ended up leaving him down there. In the present she was now on the bridge where a huge holo-projector appeared out of the floor showing the Arcturus System with ship traffic, satellites, fuel and planetary space stations were. "Let's bring the slipspace drive online," Narima said as her captain's chair rose from the the floor.<p>

"Yes Captain," came a disembodied voice.

"Is that..." Shepard began.

"Cortana?" Narima finished. "Yes. Cortana say hello."

In a flash of colorful lights the images on holo-projector changed into the form of a beautiful creasion woman. "Greetings Commander Shepard, it is an honor to meet you. EDI and I have been talking for several days about your species and my own. From what she's told me, you are a great hero."

Faith chuckled as her cheeks lit up with a blush. "I'm not the only hero out there," she humbly stated.

"Of course." she said and redirected her attention to the portal that was appearing in front of the ship. "Slipspace accessed. Jumping in three, two, one." And with that the inhabitants inside of the _Angelwing_ vanished from the Arcturus System just as quickly as it had appeared several weeks prior.

* * *

><p><strong>M-Angel<strong>: Sorry it took me so long to come out with this chapter. I wanted to wait until after ME-3 came out so I could possible incorporate some of that into my story. I now doubt I will. The game was wonderful, but the three choice ending sucked! I was very dissatisfied with that ending. I may do an ME-3 prelude story to this one, I may not. Haven't really decided. So, I'm sorry for the lateness, next chapter will come out faster; promise.

**xoxoangii**: i didn't even get the third ending! and i got the ME Infiltrator game for the iPhone and my origin accounts arent matching up somehow, im so mad :[


	8. Chapter 8: Life Goes On

**Chapter 8**: _Life Goes On_

* * *

><p><strong>Date<strong>: _May 8, 2188_

**Location**: _Anatole / Odar'is_

"Laura!" came a voice behind the young human girl, causing her to look up from her newest book on her datapad.

Upon doing so she saw an asari girl running up to her. "Lina, what is it?" she inquired as she placed her pad back in her backpack.

The girl held up her latest grade paper from history. "I passed!" she cheerfully yelled as she sat down next to Laura.

"Told ya," was her reply as she continued to wait for her mother to pick her up.

"Why don't you come with me to celebrate?" she asked.

Sighing, Laura shook her head. "Can't. I'm babysitting my little brother," she lied. The truth was she didn't trust any asari. She couldn't explain why, she just couldn't bring herself to trust them entirely.

"Well, then bring him," the girl said, though reluctantly.

This caused Laura's eyes to widen in surprise, which caused Lina to smile. "You do realize that my brother is a destructive little son-of-a-villi right?"

Lina laughed. "Where in the world did you learn that saying?" the girl gasped with mirth.

"My dad," she simply replied. "I'll ask my mom."

"Wonderful!" Lina said excitedly as she stood up and smoothed out her dress. "Meet me at the park." With that she took off as a human woman approached them.

Laura watched Lina give the woman her grade paper, the woman smiled and wrapped an arm around the young asari girl. She then saw her mother's groundcar pull up to the driveway of the school and picked up her stuff and walked over to where she had parked. "Hi Mom," she greeted as she buckled up.

"Had a good day?" her mother asked. Laura looked over to her mother and nodded. Her mother used to have a beautiful face that went with her angelic voice, but during the Reaper War, debris from a falling building had flown by and caught her mother's face. The everlasting effect of that was a long, jagged, ugly scar that slashed from just under her mother's right eyes, across her nose, down her left cheek, and ran down the left side of her neck. She loved her mother, but it was sometimes hard to look at her with the scar reminding her of that horrible day.

"Lina asked me to meet her at the park," she said reluctantly. "She says James can come with us." Out of the corner of her eye she saw her mom nod.

"I thought you didn't have any friends besides Kenti," her mom smiled.

"I promised Dad that I'd make friends." Her mom hummed at that. "So, while you're at work, I'll watch James at the Park?"

"I suppose." was her reply. "Just keep an eye on him, please?"

"Yes, Mom," she said semi-excitedly as the vehicle came to a stop at the house and she took off to relieve the neighbor woman, Mrs. Daniels, from watching her brother.

* * *

><p><strong>Location<strong>: _Pegasus System / Klie'vak_

"Disengaging FTL drives. Emission sinks active. Board is green - we're running silent," came the turian pilot's voice throughout the CIC as they came around to the first gas planet they'd been near for the first time in days.

Behind the pilot stood the turian Lieutenant-Commander Venzictus Arcterus, who was known for his brutality during battles on and off the ground. His black and white striped facepaint, which made him look like the dead Spectre Nihlus, made most turians respect him more than fear him. "So where has this new relay sent us?" he asked. He had been with the group that had discovered the _Drifters_ planet close to a month ago. It had taken a month of exploring that system to discover a second Mass Relay, which they had activated with permission from the council.

"Navigation shows this as Pegasus, a constellation system that is a hundred and twenty-nine light years from Earth," said the navigator as he brought up their current position on the galaxy map.

"Incredible." Venzictus marveled as he looked at Earth's position compared to this system. "So it's a visible system to earth?"

"Yes sir," was the navigator's reply.

"Then Earth will probably claim it," he mumbled. "How many planets has the probe found in this system?" he asked the pilot.

"Four," was his reply. "This seems to be the largest planet, with two moons circulating around it, both seem to be going in opposite directions than the other. Then between this one and the next is a huge asteroid field. Beyond that is what looks to be a habitable planet, also has two moons circulating it. The other two are extremely close to the sun and are rock planets, both have one moon each," the pilot said as he read the data coming back from the probe.

"Set a course for the inhabitable planet and begin scanning the planet for any signs of intelligent life." He paused. "Release two probes within the asteroid field and scan for any element zero."

"Yes sir," the pilot replied as he brought FTL back online and flew away from the gas planet and unto the unknown planets ahead of him.

* * *

><p><strong>Location<strong>: _Epsilon Eridani System_

Narima walked out of her cabin in a full length off the shoulder red and white silk dress that hugged all of her curves. Around her neck was the same necklace she always wore, which seemed to be glowing today. She wore red ankle high-heel boots, and on her left hip was her newest accessory: a glowing red eco sabor sword. As she walked into the mess hall she saw Commander Shepard sitting with her group, talking. When she got near them with her breakfast she could hear the young quarian going on about how the slipspace engine worked and the reactors cores. "Sleep well?" she asked as she sat down.

"Yes," was Faith's reply.

"So, are you enjoying yourself down in engineering, Miss Tali?" she inquired as she peeled a pink fruit that looked like a banana and began eat it.

"Oh, Keelah, yes!" she exclaimed. "If we had ships like yours a few hundred years ago, I think my people may not be having the problems we are having right now."

"Such as?" Narima inquired.

"Like our immune systems," she said as she began explaining about how weak the immune systems were and that some people were having problems reintroducing their bodies to their homeworlds atmosphere.

"And you've lived in these suits all of your lives?" she inquired with a horrified look plastered on her face.

"Well, yes," was Tali's reply.

"Hasn't anybody tried to help you strengthen your immune systems?" she asked, but already knew the answer deep down in her heart.

"No," was Tali's simple, but oh so complicated answer.

"Dear Gi'ah." She prayed as she stopped eating and stared at the quarian woman.

Faith chuckled. "It's not as bad as it used to be," she stated. "Her people, or at least those who haven't suffered negative reactions, can walk around Rannoch without their suits, but aren't able to be without them on other worlds...yet." Faith stood and left.

"I couldn't imagine your life." She shook her head. "Wearing full armour for a few hours makes me sick to my stomach. I could never imagine wearing it all my life."

Tali giggled. " Most can't, but I thank you for not making too big of a commotion about it."

Narima was about to say something when Cortana's voice interrupted. "Exiting slipspace in ten minutes."

Smiling, Narima stood up. "Want to see the system in style?" she asked.

Joker chuckled. "You serving wine?" he asked jokingly.

"Maybe when we get to the ground," she joked back.

"Goody." He chuckled as he hobbled off after the group.

As they entered the bridge Narima wasn't surprised to see Torn or Ashlin already there talking with Commander Shepard, who looked at ease with the Alpha and Delta leaders. "Captain," Torn greeted.

"Cortana, bring us out near Mor'ah." Narima ordered as she placed her arms behind her back.

"Yes Captain," came her voice as she appeared on the holo-projector.

As the _Angelwing_ exited slipspace, the humans, turian, salarian, and quarian were greeted by the sight of a huge gas planet with two inhabitable moon planets rotating around it. The ship came to a stable orbit around the light pink atmosphered garden planet. The planet itself had only one large landmass with icecaps at the poles, and water covering the rest of the planet. In all, it looked like a very young Earth during the dinosaur era. In the middle of the landmass was a very large city, already it looked to be halfway done.

Also in orbit were several ships that were putting together and building a large spacestation that could possibly rival the Citidel. Surrounding the station were thousands of sentinel robots who looked to be welding the pieces together. The structure and shell seemed almost complete, leaving the inner and outer shells needing to be put into place before adding ventilation and the atmosphere for people to actually live onboard. All in all it was an impressive sight for something that hadn't existed a month ago.

Smiling as she turned around at the visitors, she said, "Welcome to Mor'ah, our newest colony and your home for the next few months." Narima turned back. "Bring us into dry dock, Cortana."

"Yes, Captain." The AI turned to the window looking out at the planet as they came into the atmosphere and soon the city of New Haven, their home for the next several months.

* * *

><p><strong>M-Angel<strong>: I promised another chapter for you guys. So here it is. Hope ya'll enjoyed it.

**xoxoangii**: TECHNICALLY I was a day late posting this . my badd.. but hope you like it! ^_^


	9. Chapter 9: Family

**Chapter 9**: _Family_

* * *

><p><strong>Date<strong>: _May 8, 2188_

**Location**: _Anatole / Odar'is_

Lukas Kjellson looked out on the deck of his two bedroom home that the Spectres has given him. His asari wife, Mia, had passed through the background check by a Miss Goto, who sounded even more cryptic in person than she did on the comm call that got him this job. Currently, Mia was telling the movers where everything needed to be, all the while waddling after them with her pregnant belly partially sticking out from under her shirt. He chuckled as the turian men moved the couch to the front of the living room a third time. "Lukas!" she cried out. "I can't tell if this looks right."

He walked back inside and looked to see where things were. The couch was against the window with round glass tables at the end, the round glass table in the center of the room, the television terminal on the wall opposite of the couch and two potted Thessian flowers that were wedding gifts from her mother Matriarch Lil'ussa. Smiling he replied. "Looks perfect to me love."

The turian men looked relieved at not having to move these pieces again. "Are you sure?" she questioned with uncertainty, causing the movers to look back at him.

"Yes, it's perfect," he said smiling as he walked up to her and wrapped his arms around her waist from behind, this caused her to sigh.

"Knock, knock!" came a cheerful voice from the doorway.

Upon turning his head he smiled. "Sis!" he called out happily.

Laughing heartily, Linnea walked over to her brother and his wife. "Unpacking already?" she questioned.

"Just the furniture." Mia giggled at her sister-in-law, which caused the swedish woman to roll her eyes.

"Let me guess," Lukas began as he laid his chin on his wife's shoulder. "You haven't even begun unpacking."

"Nope." She shook her head. "My stuff's on its way from Sweden, not Zareth." Her brother laughed heartily. Growling slightly, she walked passed him, grabbed his blonde ponytail and gave it a good yank, this caused him to yell out a few curses in swedish and the two women to laugh lightly. "Yeah, I think I'm a gonna like living across the street from you bro."

"Joy," he grumbled as he rubbed his head.

"You've gotta let me decorate for you," Mia said as she grabbed Linnea's hand and tugged her towards the stairs going up.

"Sir?" began one of the turian movers. Lukas turned his attention to the one wearing red facepaint. "Is there anything else that you or your wife need moved around?"

"Probably," he began. "But my sis and I can take it from here." He opened his omni-tool. "How much do I owe you guys?"

"You'll get the bill," snortted the one wearing green facepaint, which earned him a glare from one not wearing any.

"Okay," he sighed as he escorted them out and closed the door. Looking back inside he saw the mountain of boxes that needed to be gone through and groaned. "I need beer first," he mumbled as he walked into the kitchen.

* * *

><p>Upon walking into his and Faith's home, Garrus was greeted by Urz's snarling form. He had no idea why Faith liked this varen, but since that day on Tuchanka the alpha had followed her around, but disliked him. Groaning, he reached into the grocery bag and threw a roast to the varen, who caught it and ignored him. Walking into the family living area he was greeted by the sight of his daughter Melina sitting on the floor looking around herself at the toys in front of her. Upon seeing him though, she gave out a cry. Chuckling he walked over to her and picked her up. "Where is your Mada?" he asked her. Melina just grabbed at his face with her tiny three-fingered hands; which caused him to chuckle. He then heard a gasp and turned to see a female turian with vertical green bars painted on her face and fringe. "Dr. Monroe," he greeted.<p>

"Hello Spectre," she greeted back. "I wasn't expecting you back yet."

"Is Faith here?" he questioned knowing his wife would never leave their daughter unattended.

"No, she's been invited to see the Creassion's newest colony and learn more about them," she said as she handed him a bowl of crushed meat for the little one to eat. "She's not expecting to be back home for the one year anniversary. She said she could be gone for a month."

"Could be?" he inquired as he fed his daughter.

"She was unsure," was her answer. "She gave me Melina to bring home." She paused as she picked up a suitcase. "She's been changed. I need to get home to my husband."

"Of course," he nodded. "Thank you for watching over her."

He saw how the doctor seemed to look at his daughter with longing. "She reminds me of Lixinea," she stated before she left.

Looking down at his daughter with love shining in his eyes, he smiled. "We're going to get reacquainted little one," he said, causing the little one to look up from the crushed meat he was feeding her and blink at him. This caused Garrus to chuckle. "Don't look at me that way. That's your Mada's look." She just gave him another blank look as if to say '_What was that?'_ He just chuckled as he continued to feed her the talashae meat.

* * *

><p>Yesa Harill looked at the dome home that had been built specifically for a volus. She knew that being one of two volus in the Spectres would mean she'd have to watch herself. She loved pranks, but now had to be serious. She hated hard work, but knew a lot of people were counting on her not to be a failure. Her clan was practically bankrupted when they'd bought her back from another clan. So she knew that being a Spectre was a grand investment for her clan because half of her income would return to Irune to her clan, which would then be split among her clan members; most would be split between her parents and the clan elders before being split among the other Harill clan members.<p>

Taking a deep breath, she approached the quarian engineers who'd just finished the dome. "Thank you very much quarian-clan," she said. "I am very happy to have a home to myself. Do tell me you re-checked the pressure points."

"Yes, I have," said the male quarian. "I am engineer Hal'Reeger vas Darib. I am the main engineer here around town."

"Then I thank you again Hal of clan Reeger," she said sounding amused.

"Ha, yeah it was fun building this," he said as he walked over to the waiting aircar. Snuffing at this, she turned and walked into the dome just as the quarians left.

* * *

><p>"Is it me, or are there more people in town than there usually is?" Kenti asked Laura, who had a hold of her brother James' hand.<p>

"Maybe a few," she answered.

"Hey, I saw you at the park with Lina Alistar," he said, waiting for a response.

"Yeah, so," she mumbled as she pulled James' arm to get him to move faster.

"Well," he paused. "I thought you hated asari."

Laura stopped in her tracks, which caused James to bump into her leg and grumble. "I don't hate them. I'm uncomfortable around them." She growled as she narrowed her eyes at him. "There's a difference."

"You know she's got a human brother, right?" he asked as they stared walked up the hill that led to their homes.

"What?" she asked as she looked at him with wide eyes. "I mean, I knew she had a human mother, but not a human brother."

"Yep," he nodded. "He's smaller than James."

"Cool." She stopped at the front of her house. "See you tomorrow."

"Uh..." he scratched his fringe behind his head. "Don't know. I have sparring classes that start tomorrow and biotic classes too."

"Biotic?" she questioned with wide eyes.

He gave her a full on turian smile. "Can't let you know everything at once, now can I?" He laughed as he turned and left for his home across the road.

Frowning, Laura headed up the porch steps and opening the door when James went sailing into the room into the arms of a turian with green swirled facepaint. "Pada!" James yelled and wrapped his arms around their father's leg, right above the spur.

"First-son, have you behaved?" Odin inquired with a raised brow-plate.

"Yes!" the boy yelled happily, which caused Laura to snort.

"I see," was his reply as he sat a wooden crate down on the floor next to James.

Upon lifting the lid, James gasped. "Puppy!" he squealed as he pulled out an animal with black fur and brown splotches.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Something called a German Shepherd," he said with a satisfied look as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"I meant is it a male or a female?" she said as she squatted down next to the puppy.

"Male," he answered as he looked around. "Where is your mother?"

"Working," she giggled as the puppy jumped on her. "He needs a name." She laughed out as he licked her face.

"Lue!" James yelled excitedly.

Laura rubbed her ear. "James don't yell," she said sounding annoyed.

"Lue," he whispered, which caused Odin to chuckle.

"How about Galantis?" she asked as she rubbed to pups belly as his tail flopped on the floor.

"I like that one," Odin agreed as he watched the two play with the pup. "We'll ask your mother."

"Ask me what?" came a feminine voice. Looking up Odin smiled at his beautiful human wife.

"What do we name the puppy, mommy," James asked.

Ann looked down at the pup and smiled. "Well, he looks like a Spot to me," she joked, which caused the little boy to look back at the pup.

"Spot it is," he announced.

"I like Galantis better," Laura complained, causing James to stick out his tongue at her.

"Now, now..." Ann began.

"I know mom," she said. "We'll name him Spot, but I name the next one." She looked down and watched James play with the pup.

* * *

><p><strong>Location<strong>: _Epsilon Eridanus System / Mor'ah_

After the _Angelwing_ had gone into the dry docks, they took a pelican dropship to the city that was an hour away from the military bases and research stations that were being built outside the city. Joker had gotten to ride in the cockpit with second Flight Lieutenant Jol'nea Holsom who pointed out the controls and what did what. She also talked about a newer land model called a Hellcat Cruiser that allowed the pilot to have a neural connection to the ship, which got Jeff going. The hour long ride was quite entertaining as the two pilots weighed in on the positives and negatives of neural controls. So by the time they arrived it was decided by Faith to not allow Joker to have any neural implants done because of the unknown technology, even though by the sounds of it, he liked the idea.

"Welcome New Haven City, population is currently under five hundred thousand," the pilot said as the reached the city limits. Turning around, Faith looked outside the cockpit window. She saw hundreds of flying vehicles that didin't look like any type of aircar she'd ever seen. "What are those vehicles?" she asked Vol'com.

The woman turned her head and looked out the cockpit windows. "Those are civilian Zoomers," she said with a smile.

"Civilian?" she asked. "There are military?"

"Freedom Guard is the main military, but their are other branches. The Air Force is ironically called Air Guard."

"Naval?" Faith inquired.

"That's a tricky one," she said with a chuckle. "The main Naval force is on Gi'ah. It's called the Sea Guard, but there is also the Aquatic Guard as well. They are a special group."

"Why?" Tali asked with a cock of her helmet.

"They're mutated...kinda." That got her some looks. "They use to stay away from the rest of us, but when the Protheans took one of their own people, they became aggressive to everybody around them. They're capable of breathing underwater and have cities under the ocean's of Gi'ah. It wasn't until twenty thousand years ago that they became our allies. Since then they've created their own Naval army called..."

"The Aquatic Guard." Faith finished.

Vol'com nodded. "Yes."

It was then that they landed on a pelican pad on a large building in the center of the city. "This is Freedom Guard HQ ma'am," Jol'nea said as the dropship engines quieted and shut down. Turning to the human pilot she smiled. "Wanna see the Hellcats?"

"Hell yeah." He smiled as he hobbled off after her.

"Joker," Faith called out with worry.

"Don't worry Shep, I ain't puttin' nothin' in my head." He looked at the Elvian pilot. "Unless ya'll have visual pornography, then all bets are off."

That caused Jol'nea to laugh. "I'll take you to the Naughty Ottsel," she said wrapping an arm around his shoulders.

"Oh god," Faith groaned as she followed Vol'com inside of the building with Tali behind her and Mordin talking with Vincent about something she couldn't quite hear.

"No more blue interiors," Tali commented.

"No, this building is above the yellow, blue, green, and red zones; so the interior will match said colors, minus the main control room which would be blue and white." Vincent said as he returned his attention to Mordin.

"Oh." was Tali's only response as they followed Narima into a very large room with a wall of windows on one side of the room, mirrors on the other and a hall that led to more rooms.

"This is your quarters for you to sleep and live in during your stay," she said as she approached the windows. "The windows open up to a glass balcony, the mirrors open up to the kitchen and dining room area." She pointed to the hall. "There are six bedrooms down there. The food we brought from Zareth will be brought to you by morning. You are free to roam around the city, as long as you have a guide with you at all times. If you get lost, ask for help from a blue armoured soldier and they will direct you as to where you are and where you need to go." She looked at the holographic pedestal. "If you need help, ask Cortana."

As she said this the pedestal came to life in a ray of brilliant colors. "It'll be an honor to help you," she said with a smile.

"Enjoy yourselves," Narima said as she walked over to the door. "I have a meeting, but if you need me in an hour, have Cortana contact me." With that she and Vincent left them to get rested for the days to come.

Faith turned to the AI. "Can you contact second Flight Lieutenant Jol'nea and tell her we'd like to join her and Joker to that bar."

The AI smiled. "Of course." As the AI vanished Marva entered the room.

"First, we're gonna clean up, then we're going to have some fun," Faith paused as she watched Marva sit down awkwardly in the non-turian friendly furniture. "And come tomorrow we're going to get down to work." Everybody nodded and went off to find their own rooms, minus Marva, who walked out onto balcony to get some fresh air. She'd always wanted something exciting to happen while working for _the_ Commander Shepard, but now everything seemed so overwhelming. Hiding this from her CO was hard, especially since Faith was just so nice. Turning her head slightly she saw Vol'com down on a lower balcony wearing an elegant dress and talking to what appeared to be one of the delegates that had been on Zareth. They seemed to embrace fondly before walking away together. _What the-_ her thought was interrupted when she heard her name called. She turned and saw Faith and the other waiting. She then turned her head back to where Vol'com had been, and frowned before going back inside to join the others.  
>-<p>

**M-Angel**: So, how was that? I just want to mention, I do have a new poll going on in my profile if anybody is interested.

**xoxoangii**: sorry it took so long for me to post, i just finished my battle with congestion x_x


	10. Chapter 10: Secrets Pt 1

**Chapter 10**: _Secrets Pt. 1_

* * *

><p><strong>Date<strong>: _May 9, 2188_

**Location**: _Epsilon Eridani / Mor'ah_

Eyes snapped open as Narima woke up and listened to her surroundings. She wasn't in a ship, but on a planet. _Mor'ah_ she thought as she took in the silence of her bedroom. There were no engine sounds, no jumps out of slipspace or jumps into FTL. It always took her a couple of days to get herself back into the motions of daily life once back on the ground. Last night she'd brought Shepard and her people to their new home before she headed out to meet somebody close to her. Her mind went back to the meeting.

_After changing from her traveling clothes she changed into something more apropiate, she walked onto the lower level balcony to talk with Queen Nari when she heard a voice off to the right of her. Bathed in the gas giant's blue light was the queen of Sky Kingdom."Lady Volk'ner," Nari spoke._

_Sighing she smiled. "You're majesty," she said with a bowed head._

_"Oh please..." the woman said before embracing her in a hug. "I haven't seen you since you were fifteen. It's been close to a hundred years! You never come to court anymore and you are hardly ever mentioned by your father."_

_"That's because I'm a disappointment to him," she said. "He and I haven't seen eye to eye since those damn eco **treatments** that were forced upon me." her eyes narrowed._

_Nodding slightly the Sky queen pulled her hands close to her chest. "You are my sister's daughter. You are royal and have ignored all of your royal duties for the last hundred years!" she watched Narima flinch at the reminder of being of royal blood._

_"I stopped being royal the day my father turned me into a monstrosity." She growled with anger and turned her back to the queen. Her hands were shaking and she could feel the darkness wanting out._

_"You look normal my child." she whispered to her as she gently touched Narima's shoulder only to pull it away quickly as a jolt of electricity shocked her. Looking back at her niece she raised an eyebrow at her. "What exactly did he do to you?" she questioned but the answer was already clear as Narima's hair had already begun to change it's color to black._

_Upon turning her head towards her aunt, she already knew by her aunt's reaction that the transformation had already begun. Closing her now pitch black eyes she turned away once again. "Look up the DP on the dataspace, because all I know is that I was exposed to high levels to dark eco and labrats don't exactly get all that information while being subjected to inhumane treatments." With that she had left her aunt speechless on the balcony._

Looking down at her hands Narima grimced in remembering how quickly the transformation was and how painful it was to go back. The first time it had happened was when she was fifteen. Her father had wanted stronger warriors and had thought that if he had injected not just his men but his two children with dark eco that he'd get the warriors he so desperately wanted. However, that wasn't the case. Her brother died after the first injection, then twenty of his best warriors died after the second. After two years of torture with dark eco he finally got the results he wanted through her, but at the cost of her humanity. She had hated him every day since. Then twenty years later Geoffrey Praxis, Ashlin's father, had done the same experiments with his people in Haven City on Gi'ah. He had been killed for treason. The only survivor was a young man named Jak, who was now her greatest ally. He understood what it meant to be considered a monster. Only difference between the two, now, was he still hated Geoffrey, while she had forgiven her father.

Breathing in shakily, she pushed the blankets back to begin her day.

* * *

><p>Joker opened one eye woozily. His mouth tasted like shit and his head was pounding as if a krogan had knock him in the head. <em>Oh yeah...I've got a...hangover.<em> He groaned into the pillow his face was currently hiding in when a sudden movenment made him look to his right. Eyes widened in shock at a very naked Flight Lieutenant Jol'nea sleeping next to him. Carefully, he went through the night's events. _Let's see...saw the hellcats...went to the bar with She and co...saw a talking rodant...or maybe that was my mind playing tricks._ He then patted himself down and felt to see if he had any broken bones. _Nothing's broken,_ he mused. _Hope EDI'll forgive me._ Even thinking about the AI made him wince and suddenly feel sick.

Suddenly Jol'nea woke up by stretching her limbs and smiled when her blue eyes came to rest on his green. "Hey sexy." she giggled as she pulled herself up to his now sitting form and began kissing him, but he didn't respond. "You okay?"

"What happened last night?" he questioned as he looked around for his clothes. _Pants, socks, and shirt are on the floor._ Looking on the bed he couldn't spot his underwear anywhere.

She giggled. "We had lots of fun!" she said with excitement.

"Obviously." he mumbled.

"We went to the Naughty Ottsel, where you got into an argument with Daxter about what the sexiest woman is suppose to look like or something like that." she paused as she tried to remember what else happened. "Your Commander challenged Sig to an arm wrestle; which she won. The turian girl punched somebody for groping her butt and waist without permission. Jinx, I think was there trying desperately to understand your science about alcohol beverages and we then left and ended up having lots of sex."

"Lots?" he questioned with a raised eyebrow. "I'm screwed!" he groaned.

"Yes you are!" she giggled obviously oblivious to what he meant. "You are throughly screwed and might I add," she got close to his ear. "you are very good at it." she finished by kissing his cheek, jumping out of bed and going to the bathroom.

Joker laid his head back against the headboard, looking up he groaned. "How the hell-" he said upon spotting his underwear hanging from the ceiling fan. _I really don't want to know how that happened,_ he thought as he slowly got out of bed and got dressed.

* * *

><p>Narima walked into the warrior training fields and spotted a green haired man talking to an orange and yellow ottsel. Upon walking up to them the man turned his head towards her and smiled. "Narima!" he yelled happily, picked her up in a hug, and then let her go.<p>

"Jak!" she gasped. "It's so good to see you." She stood there looking at him in his training clothes which amounted up to a white tunic and tan shorts that stopped at his knees. "You look good."

"Thanks, you too." They were interrupted by ottsel jumping up on Jak's shoulder.

"Hey! What about me?" It asked.

Giggling she said. "I saw you last night, Daxter."

"Oh, right. Like I remember you out of a million people who came in." he grumbled as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Well, I was the only one with a turian, salarian, quarian and two humans with me." she said smiling.

That got his attention as his ears perked up on his head. "Oh...oh! Now I remember!" he smiled with a sneaky look in his eyes. "That sol's pilot an' I got along real well. Bet he won't leave his drink unattended again." He laughed quietly.

"Daxter, what'd you do?" Jak questioned as the ottsel pulled up his blue jean pants again.

"N-Nothing!" he yelped as Narima picked him up by his tail. "It was a joke! That's all!" Both looked at him with unconvinced eyes. "Look, I just slipped in a pill that would make 'im feel all drunk...with a minor nausea." Narima's eyes widened. "Besides, Jol'nea helped 'im leave last night."

"Great." She sighed with a shake of her head.

"Sorry." Daxter's ears fell back against his head.

"Just be sure to never do this again, otherwise I'll have to arrest you."

"You got it sweetcheeks!" With that he ran off.

"And don't call me that!" she yelled after him, which caused Jak to laugh. "Dax is still himself."

"Of course. A hundred years isn't gonna change him." he said with a smile. "I heard you're Captain of your own spaceship nowadays."

"Yep," she looked at him. "Thought you'd never leave Gi'ah."

"Dracose wanted me out here. Said he didn't trust Doctor Zor'dare or Count Veger." he paused. "I don't know anything about Zor'dare, but Veger was a part of those dark eco experiments a hundred years ago in Haven City. He got himself changed into an ottsel because of an old piece of machinery that was left behind by those people, only to get changed back a few years later. He still hasn't paid for what he has done."

Sighing, she gently touched Jak's shoulder. "I wish you could forgive," she whispered to him, causing his ear to twitch. "I did."

"Yeah, but it was your father who-" he was interrupted when she placed her hand over his lips.

"If you let this hate consume you, you'll be worse then them." She pulled her hand away. "Then they will have won. If you forgive, then they have no power over you or your life." She saw him look away. "Whatever happened to Keira Haggai? Did you and her ever settle down?"

"No," he whispered with a painfilled voice.

"Why?" she asked, but even as she asked it, she knew the answer before it came.

"Because I didn't want her to get hurt,'" he growled, his hair changing slightly before returning to its natural green/blonde color.

"What makes you think you would?" she asked as she cocked her head towards him.

"Because...that's what I do. I hurt people." He looked at his hands. "I'm a monster created for one thing: to kill."

Rushing over to him she slid her hands into his. "No," she whispered, which caused him to tighten his grip on her hands. "You are not a monster." She paused. "In a month, Shepard and her people leave, I want you to come with me. Stay with me and I'll teach you what I've learned over the last hundred years."

His head snapped up causing her to see the unshed tears in his eyes. "Okay," he whispered.

"Good." She smiled and hugged him tightly. "Just stay out of trouble."

He sniffed. "No promises," he joked.

* * *

><p><strong>Date<strong>: _May 16, 2188_

**Location**: _Anatole / Odar'is_

"My life is so boring!" Laura groaned as she flopped on her back dramatically.

"Says the girl who's father is a Spectre," Kenti snortted as he poked her side and then began pulling the grass out of the ground before watching the wind blow it away.

Sticking out her tongue at him she continued. "That's him, not me." She sighed. "The scoop assignment says 'What is the most exciting day of your life'?" she watched the pieces of grass swirl around in the air by the wind.

"How about the day you dad and mother married?" he inquired as he laid down next to her on the blanket that she had laid down on the spring ground.

"No." She groaned as she watched two birds suddenly take off from the tree above them.

"The day he adopted you?" He questioned as he too watched the birds fly off into the sky.

"What are yo-" she was interupted by a siren going off down in the town they lived in.

Kenti gasped as he saw a ship break through the atmosphere in fire. He heard Laura scream as a second one broke through but began falling into pieces. Grabbing her wrist he helped her to stand so they both could run. Keeping his hand on her, he pulled her close as they ran down into the town as fast as they could. They needed to get to the bunkers that had been built in case of a batarian attack. Looking behind them, Kenti saw a huge ship come through the atmosphere. It was pointed and long in the front and wide in the back. There were booming sounds as it began firing upon the planetary defense grid near the Spectre base. Finally, for what seemed like hours of running, but was no more than ten minutes, they came to a bunker which was filling with people. As the doors closed, neither knew who or what was attacking them, but both knew this day would inevitably change them forever.

* * *

><p><strong>Date<strong>: _May 18, 2188_

**Location**: Pegas_us System / Darwib_

"Disengaging FTL drives. Emission sinks active. Board is green - running silent," came the human pilot's voice through the CIC as they came around the gas planet. Behind him stood Commander Kirrahe, who nodded at the pilot and went about the daily checks. This was an unknown system, however that wasn't why they were here. The turian vessel Klie'vak had gone missing in this system. When Lietenant-Commander Venzictus Arcterus hadn't checked in by the tenth, a search team had been sent through the new relay, however on the fifteenth, the search team didn't make contact either; which meant that STG had to send the nearest vessel, his vessel, to check out what was going on.

"Keep me posted. Have everybody on full alert and full body armour. Don't like surprises. Make sure stealth is on and also-" he paused in his speech when he spotted a large ship heading towards them. It was unlike any ship he'd ever seen. Long in the front and wide in the back. It looked like a human arrow. It had massive rail guns. "Is there any element zero readings coming from that ship?"

His question, though it was said quickly to the human pilot was barely regestered by him. Scanning the skip quickly, the pilot's eyes widened. "No, and it's not made from the metals that the Creassions use on their ships either." He looked at the salarian commander. "Should we make contact?"

"Sir!" came an asari's voice behind them. "The probes just sent us images of the third planet."

"Yes, and the results were?" he questioned quickly.

"The planet is habitable, but the probes found this." She brought the images up on the holo-table in the room. It showed two ships, obviously blown up from an enemy vessel. As the probe images got clearer, the name Klie'vak was clearly seen.

The commander's eyes widened. It was obvious that the Lieutenant-Commander and his crew could never survive that type of an attack. "Search the vessel, with probes, and see if any of the lifepods were launched," he said as the unknown ship passed them by without seeing them.

"Yes, out of fifteen, ten were launched to the nearest habitable planet." She looked at him. "They could be on that habitable planet."

"Habitable, yes. However, it's not a friendly one." He placed a hand under his chin to think. "May need Spectres assistance in this."

"Found the search vessel," the pilot announced. "Looks like they're in the asteroid belt." The images from another probe showed the badly damaged rescue and search vessel. "No lifepods aboard." The pilot looked at the commander. "What now?"

"Head back through the relay," was his reply. "Deactivate relay. Contact Spectres." The pilot nodded and with that the _Darwib_ left as quietly as it had come.

* * *

><p><strong>M-Angel<strong>: Yes, this was a short chapter, sorry. I just wanted to get this out while it was still in my head. So I've shown you the side effects of dark eco injections and have brought in the new enemy. Next chapter will be more exciting. Promise!

**xoxoangii**: Your chapters never cease to amaze me. _


	11. Chapter 11: Secrets Pt 2

**Chapter 11**: _Secrets Pt. 2_

* * *

><p><strong>Date<strong>: _May 18, 2188_

**Location**: _Anatole / Odar'is_

Garrus looked at the holotable that he was leaning against. It showed Anatole in all its glory, with two enemy ships now hovering around it with twenty System Alliance frigates, twelve Turian Hierarchy frigates and six Geth-class dreadnoughts and dozens of fighter ships brought in by the quarian marines and geth were fighting one another. He frowned at the image. The unknown ship over Odar'is had destroyed the planetary defence grid, but hadn't launched any fighter ships or soldier shuttles. It was just hovering there. The other two were actually fighting with ship to ship battles. They now knew the enemy used super heated plasma canons and lasers that could cut through their shields in one hit. "We need help." he muttered.

"We need a miracle," Screptus uttered in pain as he sat down across from Garrus. The elder looked down at the sitting male with a frown. "We need Faith."

Huffing out a sigh; Garrus nodded. "I know. I've sent word to EDI who says she's trying to get through to a Creassion ship that's in a nearby system, but she's having trouble doing so."

"What about contacting that Spirit's-be-damned Prothean?"

Garrus chuckled at that. "Javik is halfway across the galaxy and cut off communications with Faith and I after the futuri Reaper War was over." He sighed again. "However, if EDI doesn't have any luck in getting the Creassions attention by morning; I'll ask her to contact him." Looking over to Lukas Kjellson. "Any movement from the one above us?"

"None," he said shaking his head. "I think they accidently found this planet." This caused all six Sprectres present to look his way. "I've got contacts on Illium, Gothis, Vorctum, Terra Nova and Shanxi. Nobody is seeing them near their systems. It's only here. Why?"

"The Sprectre base..." Fa'lani began but was interrupted by the batarian Spectre.

"If that's the case, they could've wiped us out two days ago," Nar'clos interjected. "I think the human is right. What if they were coming here because of some Prothean or another ancient species relic? This all could be a mistake."

"They took down planetary communications. All we have are our communications satalite orbiting the nearest gas giant," Ara'Zora Vas Darrib spoke in his slight accent, making Garrus smirk at remembering Tali's voice when he first met her back in '83. "The only reason we can connect with those is because of the geth presence on this planet. What happens when the last geth falls dead? They may have backup nodes in place on the planet, but once their bodies have been destroyed, we have no way of communicating with the rest of the galaxy."

"Mordin Valis," Fa'lani began as she brought everybody's attention to Dr. Solus' nephew. "Is there a way we could get the geth's communications to intercede the enemy's? If not, then maybe connect with them to find out why they are here?"

The newly appointed Spectre placed a hand under his chin and began thinking out loud. "May be send a small shuttle to ship orbiting above Odar'is...no, would be seen; possibly even shot down. Bad idea. Could shoot one out of a canon, besides hilarity, would be bad idea as well. An armature could use escape pod on one of the fighter ships, could direct pod to land on top of ship orbiting Odar'is. Could possibly infiltrate ship communications then. Yes, this is the best idea."

"A creaper geth could do that better. A prime or armature could be detected," Ara'Zora spoke with some excitement.

"Agreed." Valis nodded in agreement.

"We don't have any fighters on the base though," Screptus groaned.

"No, we'll get in touch with one already fighting." Garrus smirked causing a duh expression to come over Screptus' face before Screptus flicked his fingers at him which made Garrus chuckle. His expression turned serious. "Has everybody been able to find family members since these ships came here?"

"I've been able to find most residents in bunkers around or in the base," Yesa Harill spoke through the filters of her suit. "I've found all of the Sprectre children or families in the base."

"Good." Garrus turned his attention back to the battles that were being shown on the holotable. "Ava, get a hold of the geth Prime leader, Myriad."

"Myriad?" Ya'isha Mio'i inquired. "Is it a he or she?"

"A she, or at least uses a female voice," Fa'lani said with a smirk as she stood causing her loose black and red dress to fall back into place from being in a hunched position most of the morning.

"Spirits of air...they're getting sexually oriented?" Screptus guffawed, causing most to join him in laughter.

"I swear if I see a child geth walking around I'm gonna lose it." Lukas chuckled as he stood and walked away.

As the rest of the Spectres left, Nar'clos looked at Vakarian. "What happens if they really are here to destroy the Spectres?" he inquired, his four orange eyes staring into the turian's blue ones.

"Then it really is war," was his reply as the two men continued to watch the holo.

* * *

><p><strong>Location<strong>: _Orbit around Anatole / SSV Kilimanjaro_

Captain Shepard looked at the holoprojector and looked at the weakening points on the ship he and the rest of the Alliance ships had begun attacking a day ago. This one was smaller than the other two, but shaped the same. The one above Odar'is was 800 meters long, and the back was 550 meters wide. It was in the shape of an arrow head. It was equipped with canons and lasers, but there were dozens of unknown weapons; on the underside, that looked to be canons, but were definitely something else entirely. The one he and the rest of the Alliance fleet were fighting were half the size in length and width, but still hard to fight.

Suddenly another ship exploded as the lasers seared through the shields, metal, and the tentalis Mass Effect core went nucular and exploded in seconds of becoming unstable. "Dear God..." he heard the pilot whisper.

"You praying son?" he inquired from the young man.

The pilot glanced at him. "Yes sir," he mumbled quietly.

John's eyes hardened at the battlescene before him. "Do say one for us all son, we're going to need all the help we can get." As he said this, a turian ship exploded nearby.

"We need a Reaper-class weapon to destroy these ships," the XO muttered as the John looked at the mess they were in.

_This is hopeless,_ John thought. "Ready the thanix and guardian lasers," he yelled out. "We're going in for another round."

"Sir, the shields are eighty-nine percent!" XO Carlson yelled out as John walked down from the CIC to the comm to the main battery.

"Fires are out sir!" the Lieutenant said with what sounded like relief.

"Get her ready for round two boys." He smiled as he went back to stand behind the pilots chair. "Lock the doors to the CIC and to the cockpit Flight Lieutenant."

The pilot sighed. "Yes sir." He pressed the buttons on the arogel console. "Locking down the two compartments."

"If we die today, we die with the knowledge we did everything we could do to protect the people onboard and on the ground." he gently touched the pilots shoulder.

"Yes sir!" was his reply. "It's been an honor sir." The young man said with a smile.

"The honor is mine." John smiled as the Kilimanjaro began to angle down towards the enemy ship for another round.

* * *

><p><strong>Location<strong>: _Above ship over Odar'is_

"Consensus agrees with your analysis creator Zora-Ava," came the female voice of Myriad in the fighter ship. "However we believe that this is a job for this platform."

"Spectre Vakarian says it could be best suited for a creaper to do this job," came the worried quarians voice.

"There are no creaper platforms aboard this fighter or other fighter ships," Myriad answered. "Nearest creaper platform is twenty point three light years away aboard ships that will intervene in this fight."

"Keelah, you are stubborn," she groaned at the geth.

"Consensus agrees with that sentence about this platform, however this platform believes it can to do this mission with zero casualties," was the geth's answer.

"Very well," was her reply. "Good luck!"

"Thank you." With that, Myriad cut off its communications with creator Zora-Ava and aimed the fighter ship down to the alleged enemy ship. Once it determined that the ship would indeed be destroyed by the enemy, it pulled a lever which popped the top of the fighter off and jumped just as a laser beam destroyed the fighter ship. Using gravity from the atmosphere of the planet, it fell on top of the enemy ship. Using the stealth generator that was attached to its back, it began searching for a way into the ship. Finding an entrance hooked above a plasma canon, it slipped inside without raising the alarms.

Looking at the stealth generator timer, it estimated that it had thirty minutes before the stealthfield would run out and need recharging. Slowly it made its way down an empty hallway. Using its receptors in its flashlight-like head it began recording and sending what it was recording down to the Spectre base. Hallway after hallway was empty when suddenly a door opened. Walking through the door, it found itself above dozens of unknown organics on a balcony. None of unknowns seemed to sense its presence. Reaching consensus that it needed to find the bridge or the captain of the ship, it turned around and left the room.

It took Myriad twenty point two minutes to find the Captain in its corridors. The organic being wore a white Captain's suit without a hat. It had a white silver furry face with hair to its shoulders. The face was humaniod, but wasn't human. It looked through its extranet search and found that it was like a mix between an earth animal called a cat and human being. It had ears upon the top of its head and tail coming out of a hole in the pants it wore.

Upon looking at the stealth timer it began hacking into the ship's systems, locked the Captain's corridors, changed the command password to the door and then turned off the generator.

* * *

><p><strong>Location<strong>: _Epsilon Eridani / Mor'ah_

Faith smirked as she drove a zoomer bike passed a checkpoint on the racetrack. Speeding next to her was a warrior named Jak, who seemed to be pushing his bike as hard as she was. They came around the last turn. She pressed the accelerator that was the red button on the speedbike and flashed past Jak over the finish line. She pulled the zoomer back and came to a stop. Jak stopped a few feet from her. He laughed. "Not bad...for a beginner," he smiled.

"Right, you were letting me win." she laughed as she pushed herself off of the bike.

"Nah, you're good," he smirked. "But I didn't use the three accelerator rings I had." He pointed to the meter on his bike. She peeked at it and sure enough, all twelve accelerator rings were still there, unused. She was about to say something when Jak saw somebody approaching them. "Narima?" he questioned causing Faith to turn her head towards the woman approaching them. She was wearing a blue and gold naval suit.

"What's going on?" she asked her.

Narima's eyes softened. "We've gotten a call from your AI, EDI," she said, and immediately Faith's demeanor changed. "A planet called Anatole is under attack from an unknown enemy"

Stepping into Narima's personal space she growled. "I need to leave."

"I have a ship waiting," was her only reply as the two woman began to walk away. Stopping, she turned to Jak. "You coming?"

"You bet." He smiled and joined the two women on their way to a pelican.

* * *

><p><strong>M-Angel<strong>: Sorry for the latefullness of this chapter. I did have a different one written, but erased it and wrote this one instead.

**xoxoangii**: *holding toy ships* pew pew pew!


	12. Chapter 12: The Unveiling

**Chapter 12**: _The Unveiling_

* * *

><p><strong>Date<strong>: _May 19, 2188_

**Location**: _The Krieg_

The Creassion Warbird ships were twice the size of the _Destiny's Ascension_. Instead of the long sleek design that Shepard was used to seeing from the asari ship, this one was hexagonal and was painted pure black, though it did have a sleek shine to its outer shell. It was big enough to have two _Normandy_-class frigates attached to its underside, though it did not have said ships. The name of the ship was the _Krieg_ and the name definitely fit it. It had hundreds of hidden laser and railgun ports. On its sides were four large MAC cannons, and on its underside were six smaller versions. Then on the top of the ship was some type of weapon she'd never seen in her life. It stood on the back of the ship and it kind of reminded her of a Planetary Defense Platform only, miniaturized.

As the Pelican drop ship came in for a landing on the landing deck, they were greeted by the ship's captain. He was a short rounded man who's long pointed ears seemed to bounce as he walked up to them. She was suddenly reminded of a round version of the Easter Bunny. It took her a moment to compose herself as he greeted them. "Welcome to the Krieg," he said. His accent reminded her of an Irishman. "We're ready to leave port and head into slipspace." He looked at Faith. "You must be the human commander...err...Faith Shepard?" he stuck out a puggy hand. "Captain Zaron," he said shaking her hand.

"It's nice to meet you, though I wish it were under better circumstances," she replied as she returned his handshake.

"So true," he agreed. "Follow me to the war room."

As they entered the elevator she watched him press a circular button followed by a blue button with a strange symbol on it. However, before she could examine it any further, she found herself enveloped in a bright light. When it dimmed the doors opened to reveal a rather large and spacious room. Narima leaned over to her. "Zaron likes to use the teleporter on his ship. No real elevators." she whispered to her.

As Faith walked into the room she saw Mordin, Tali, Joker, and Marva were already sitting down around the large circular table in the center of the room. Upon sitting down between Joker and Narima, the captain coughed to clear his throat. "Around twenty-three hundred hours yesterday we received a weak signal from a ship designated Normandy SR-2." He pressed a button on the table and EDI's voice filled the room.

"This is the Normandy SR-2 to any nearby Creassion ships. Spectre base is under attack. Commander Shepard is in need. Please send help."

"The message repeats over and over in our native language," he said as he sat down. "I have asked the Sky Kingdom's Queen Nari for assistance in aiding our new allies. She is giving us two B-class frigates the _Sieg_ and the _Opfertod_. Both ships will be magnetically attached to our own. Once we are in the system where the enemy is, we will exit slipspace for them to fly off towards the planet as our distraction. We will use our stealth and use sneak attack tactics to disable their flagship." He paused when he heard Faith cough. "Commander?" he inquired.

"It's nothing," she said, waving for him to continue.

"No, I want your input," he said with a smile.

"Its just... we know nothing about this enemy." She sighed. "Who are they? What are their weapons like?" She looked at the two captain's. "I don't want your people to get slaughtered."

Narima and Zaron smiled. "Commander," he began. "When we first began spaceflight, our people already knew we weren't alone in this galaxy, due to the Outsiders coming to our world thousands of years ago. It was decided then that we would build bigger and more dangerous weapons than what they had. We knew they relied on a dark energy called Element Zero, so we decided to go further. Eco is the ultimate energy scource. It's created by planets that are young in their evolution." He pressed a button on the table and a holo image of the gun on the back of the ship appeared. "This is the Eco Fusion Canon. Its main scource of eco is dark and red." He pressed another button and a demo image appeared of two ships. "What happens is these two eco energies are shot out through a laser and combine together in one large energy beam that cuts through enemy shields and through any type of metal. The result is an explosion." The holo-image showed one ship shooting a beam at the other above the core of the ship, which resulted in the enemy ship exploding.

"Interesting," Mordin said. "Didn't see this on tour."

"It's a top secret weapon," Narima muttered quietly. "It's only on our newest warbirds."

"Where can we get one?" Faith joked.

"Not for sale," Zaron chuckled as he continued with his explanation of how they were going to attack this unknown enemy.

* * *

><p><strong>Location<strong>: _Unknown Enemy Ship Above. Anatole_

Myriad's flaps moved up and down as it began recording how the enemy captain moved. The collection of recordings were going directly to the underground Spectre base where Garrus and Nar'clos both were watching what was transpiring. "Ancestors," Nar'clos muttered. "They're quite animalistic looking."

"Agreed," Garrus nodded as he spoke into his headpiece. "Myriad, see if you can get it to speak to you."

"Affirmative Vakarian-Spectre," came her reply as she took a step towards the being, which seemed to snap in and out of its shock. It ran over to a panel and began yelling in it.

"Giving away our presence is not wise," she said to it. "I have disabled all electronically controled devices in this room. We only wish to talk."

The being froze at these words. It's hand was on its hip. "How can you speak our language?" it inquired as it spun around at looked at Myriad.

"We hacked into your networks and inquired about your language." Her head cocked to the side.

"We?" it inquired as it looked around for others like Myriad.

"Yes, we are Geth," she said.

"Geth?"

"We are a within this platform," Myriad said.

"What are you?"

"We are a synthetic species created by our creators, the Quarian species," Myriad answered.

"A machine," it hissed.

"No. We are alive," she said sounding bored at explaining this.

"Machines aren't alive."

"The Reapers considered themselves alive and above all others. They destroyed all other organic species for over fifty thousand cycles for millions of years. We are not like the Old Machines. We see organics as allies, however you are attacking these allies. We inquire why?" Myriad watched as the being suddenly shot at her. The bullets bounced off of Myriads active shields. Bending down, she picked up the bullet only to see that it was an old human bullet with gun powder inside of it. "Inefficient weapon," she said. "With this new data collected I have a new inquiry. Why did you steal this and the other two ships?"

"W-What do you mean?" it now seemed alarmed.

"Your weaponry suggests that your species evolution is no further than it's nineteenth or early twentieth century. This ship and it's others are more advanced. Meaning that the probability of them being of your technology is smaller than one percent."

"We did not steal it," it stated and then sighed as it threw it's weapon onto the bed in the center of the room. "We discovered it."

"Why attack other organics when they never harmed you?" Myriad's flaps twitched.

"Because we could."

"Inefficient," was her only reply as she switched back to the Spectres. "I inquire what to do now Vakarian-Spectre."

"Bringing him in for justice would be nice," he growled.

"Agreed," Myriad stated and switched back to the beings language. "By order verdict of Counsel Law 47980 section B as which states quote _Any species (new or old) that attacks another species without probable cause will be fined. The perpetrator or perpetrators that instigated the attacks shall be fined and imprisoned for the number of deaths involved in the conflict upon the innocent species in the battle. The government of said species shall than be ordered to pay a penalty towards the families who's loved ones were killed in action or are missing in action due to the unjustifiable attacks_ unquote. This law was created after Relay 314 Insident also known as the Shanxi War. How do you respond to this?"

The being's jaw fell. "Shit."

* * *

><p><strong>M-Angel<strong>: Hehe...well that was the last chapter that was prewritten in my notebook. The next one is gonna be off the script and fun to write because I have no clue as to what is going to happen. LoL!

**xoxoangii**: Off the script chapters are so much fun! I usually write my chapters on the fly...


	13. Chapter 13: Relations

**Chapter 13**: _Relations_

* * *

><p><strong>Date<strong>: _June 1, 2188_

**Location**: _Zareth / Zora_

_"This is Emily Wong, reporting for Zareth News. Only a couple months since the Creassion species came to Zareth we find ourselves being introduced to another species called the Neko species."_ The reporter paused during her live broadcast. "_This species attacked a newly built colony world called Anatole on May sixteenth. They unknowingly started a war with Humanity. Our allies came to our defenses. The geth, quarians, turians, and Spectres came to defend Anatole from the unknown species. The battles, which were only in space, lasted eight days. On the eighth day, geth prime leader Myriad was able to get into one of the three ships that attacked Anatole. She then stealthfully snuck around the ship until she came in contact of the captain of said ship. It is here she gained the intel that this species attacked Anatole only because they could. The Neko species found these ships and have evolved their technology towards it. It is estimated that before the Neko government discovered these ships that their species is actually in the twentieth to the twenty-first century. Because of their behavior, their people have been fined for the damages done to the cities of Anatole. The deaths of four thousand geth, two hundred turians, fifty quarians, and three hundred humans, which possibly includes Captain Shepard of the **SSV Jericho**, now lie on their heads. The Council leaders have deliberated and have found the Neko people guilty of War Crimes. The captains of the three ships are to be put on trial in two weeks time..."_

Faith turned off the news and turned her head towards the turian standing next to her. "I'm gone for a month and this happens." She groaned. "What exactly were the damages to the base?"

"Besides the defense platforms being destroyed, we have structural damages to homes outside the town, the nearby dam is close to its breaking point, and the farms outside the town have reported that several animals have gone missing or are dead, plus crop damages, both to the dextro plants and levo plants."

"S'oak," she cursed as she pinched the bridge of her nose. She then felt his taloned hands rest on her hips and his lip plates begin nibbling her shoulder. Faith's eyes closed a second as she leaned into her husbands arms. For a small moment everything around them disappeared before she heard somebody clear their throat. Turning her head towards the doorway to the starboard observation deck she spotted Nar'clos standing there staring at them with a smirk. "Nar'clos!" she greeted as she pulled away from Garrus' arms.

"Commander," he greeted back. "Sorry I interrupted, but we have guests aboard." as he moved out of the way, two female Nekos walked forward.

Faith frowned, before putting on her work face. "Welcome aboard the Normandy," she greeted without sincerity.

"Greetings, I am Zallula." This came from the one wearing a yellow dress suit with a white undershirt blouse. "This is my twin Kellina," who wore a blue dress suit with a yellow undershirt blouse. "We have been sent by our government to oversee that all damages are taken care of and to ensure that we can have friendly relations."

Faith crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes seemed to give off a glow under the Vakarian clan face paint she wore. Her blue eyes narrowed at the two women. "We'll see what happens," was all she said before walking away.

Nar'clos chuckled. "You shouldn't expect much more than that from the rest of humanity," he said before following the commander.

Garrus shook his head at the two women. "It'll probably take thirty years before humanity sees you as their ally."

"Why?" asked Kellina as her green eyes pierced Garrus' own blue ones.

"Thirty years ago we attacked Shanxi, a human colony. It's only now after all that's happened that humanity and turians even get along," he said with gleam in his eyes.

Zallula sighed. "So it may take all our lives to bring about peaceful relations."

"Perhaps," was his reply as he led them down the corridors to the airlock. "As the human saying goes 'you've lain in your bed, now you've gotta make it'."

"What's that got to do with anything?" Kellina inquired with a frown upon her face, her cat-like tail twitching in irritation.

Garrus opened his mouth to speak when Faith answered behind him. "It means that the mistake you've made is already done, now you've gotta live with its consequences," she answered. Looking at her husband she added. "Vol'com is waiting on the docks to meet you, don't keep us waiting, amantus." She turned around and walked out of the airlock towards the docks.

Sighing he looked back at the two females. "Just tell your government that they need to do what is right to bring about peaceful relations with the rest of the galaxy, including the humans." He turned and left the two Neko females alone.

"This is going to be hard," Zallula mumbled.

"Told you that your husband was crazy to start a fight with an unknown species," Kellina muttered back to her sister.

Zallula's ears fell against her head. "He didn't think they'd be more advanced!" she hissed.

"We shouldn't have done it in the first place!" Kellina hissed back before leaving the airlock and leaving the Normandy for their ship.

"Stupid humans..." Zallula half-snarled-half-hissed as she too left without knowing she'd been watched and recorded the entire time.

* * *

><p>"Jeff," came a gentle, feminine voice near his ears.<p>

Jeff opened his eyes and yawned as he sat up in his bed on the Normandy. "Yes, EDI," came his reply as he began his morning stretches to loosen up his muscles.

"I don't trust the Neko," she stated as she appeared in her humanized holo form at the foot of his bed. "They just left and something one of them said didn't sit well with me."

Stopping in the middle of one of his stretches he looked over at her. "Did you tell Faith?" he raised an eyebrow.

"Not yet." She sat down on his bed. "I recorded what was said as well."

Jeff blinked and widened his eyes. EDI never recorded anybody because she wanted people to know she respected their privacy. If she did this then...

"You're worried," he stated.

"Yes," was her only reply.

"Tell the commander as discreetly as you can," he said standing up and heading towards the locker room to shower and change for the day.

* * *

><p><strong>M-Angel<strong>: Sorry for the shortness. There is a reason for this...

**xoxoangii**: *bounces excitedly*

**M-Angel**: Calm down! ... *coughs nervously*...I am writing something special and it'll be posted for Memorial Day...so...right. *duct tapes angii's mouth shut*

**xoxoangii**: *makes muffling sounds* translation: Review!


	14. Chapter 14: Time

**Chapter 14**: _Time_

**Date**: _June 6, 2189_

**Location**: _Zareth / Zora_

Kellina looked at the calendar's date on her blue omni-tool and sighed. A year ago her people had made a huge mistake in attacking a planet that, to her knowledge, was innocent of any wrong doings against her species. She moved a piece of blue hair out of her face as she went back to filing out reports for her government. These reports were damages done to the planet and it's citizens. She was almost done when she heard a knock on her office door. "Enter," she said without looking up from the latest estimates on how long it would be before the planetary defence grid was completely finished. "Miss Kellina?" came a soft voice.

Upon raising her eyes from the datapad she saw a slender asari woman standing before her in a black off the shoulder dress. "Yes Seri?" she answered as the woman meekly walked into the room.

"The festival of lights is about to begin, are you going to be attending?" Seri sat down the couch that was in front of Kellina's desk. The festival of lights was an asari festival that allowed merchants to created illusions out of crystals from Thessia. It didn't matter what kind of. crystals they were; if they were able to conduct electricity they could be used. This usually meant that element zero crystals would be used.

"Is Commander Shepard going to be attending?" she inquired. The asari woman looked uncomfortable at the name of the human Spectre.

"She may." she stated, not making any eye contact. Kellina felt her feline eyes narrow in on the asari. This made Seri wiggle a bit under the Neko woman's stare. "It's been rumored that she might be pregnant." the asari woman scoffed at the idea. "Which is perposterous because her husband is a turian and she's a human. Dextro and levo species cannot reproduce together."

"Execpt for asari." Kellina smiled as Seri paused in her rambling. "But yes, it is quite impossible for her to be pregnant with her _husband's_ baby." She poked at the asari in jest, but the asari woman's eyes widened at the implications.

"You think she could be pregnant by IVF?" she asked.

"If the rumor is true, then quite possibly." she paused at looked at the holo clock on the wall. It was an hour before sunset. Sighing softly she turned her attention back to her datapads. "I have much to do tonight." she said sadly. "I will not be going, but you should have a fun time. I hear the Creassions will be coming to join the festival tonight."

"Of course, but..." Seri began but with a swift glare from her boss she nodded and left.

Looking back at the clock Kellina estimated that she had two hours to get her final reports in to her governmental boss back on her home planet of Colelara. She was to have it finished by morning their time or an hour after sunset, her time. Looking back down at the set of datapads she went back to typing on the terminal.

* * *

><p>Faith groaned as she buried her face into the pillow. Opening an eye she saw Garrus sitting on the bathroom floor with her. "You okay mellis?" she looked up at him, his eyes twinkling with untold emotions as his left hand was resting on her ever swelling stomach.<p>

"Do me a favorite _amatus_," she growled, which caused him to smirk. "Next time I say I want a baby, hit me over the head with a thresher maw."

Gwaffing lightly as his shoulders shook Garrus leaned his forehead against hers. "Your idea," he countered. "Besides, I think it should be Grunt or Wrex or Safe that hits you with a thresher maw, not me."

Groaning lightly Faith sat up. "I'm not married to them." she countered.

"Tell them that!" he laughed.

"Ugh!" she cried out as he face suddenly turned green and she turned back towards the toilet.

"Another good thing about turians, we don't throw up," he chuckled.

"Fuck you..." she grumbled as her curse kinda got lost in the toilet, which cause Garrus to laugh harder before he stood up and began a cool shower for her. When he turned back towards Faith he got a good look at her. She was wearing one of those silky nightgowns she had begun wearing because her other night clothes no longer fit. The swell of the baby was what made him smile the most. Looking up at him through the mirror she spotted him starring at her. "What?" she inquired as she turned towards him.

"You're beautiful," he sighed as he pulled her close to him.

"I'm as fat as a hippopotamus," she grumbled against him.

Tipping her chin up she saw his blue eyes seemed to sparkle. "No, you are beautiful amatra."

She felt tears starting to come down her cheeks as at the same time a blush dusted her cheeks. "Damn it," she grumbled. "I hate it when you see me cry," which caused him to chuckle as he left her to shower. Upon walking over to their personal terminal on the Normandy, Garrus tapped it to check the messages. There were four of them. One from Dr. Monroe, two from Joker, one from EDI and one from Anderson. He tapped the one from the doctor, who was taking care of Melina; who had a fever the night before. Upon reading the message he found out that the little one was much better and was even eatting solids once again. He sighed as that weight was lifted from his shoulders. He shuddered to think what could've happened had Monroe hadn't been there to take care of her. He knew Faith couldn't catch a dextro disease or illness, but the stress would've been too much to contend with in her condition. He tapped Joker's first message only to find out it was a joke, which did lighten his mood a bit. The second one was a message indicating they were ten minutes from docking; which had been sent thirty minutes ago. EDI's message was an inquiry to speak with Faith alone. Anderson's message was labled with a private logo, meaning he wanted to talk in person with Faith. "What's on the docate today?" came her smooth voice as she exited the shower in what she called her _prego-clothes_.

Exiting the terminal he smiled. "Just two things." This caused her to raise a delicate eyebrow at him. "EDI wants to have a talk with you and Anderson wants you to come to his office for a private meeting."

"Tell EDI later and tell Anderson I will...tomorrow." She chuckled as his brow plates raised slightly. "Tonight is the Light Festival; which for the first time in asari history is being held here on Zareth. Tomorrow I'll work, today I'm going to play." He laughed as she walked out of the room towards the elevator.

"Spirit's save us, Commander Shepard is going to take a day off!" Faith playfully hit his chest and laughed as the elevator doors closed.

* * *

><p>Narima looked up at the eco crystal chandelier that was now at the Creassion embassy on Zareth. She'd been promoted from a captain to a damn politician, which actually felt like a demotion. The chandelier was made of the four basic eco crystals with a single large light eco crystal in the center. She then heard a whistle and looked over her shoulder to see Jak and Daxter behind her. "Hey baby ya miss me?" Daxter flirted.<p>

"Hey Daxter," she greeted. "Where's Tess?"

Upon hearing her name said ottsel came out from hiding behind Jack's leg. "Hey Narima!" she greeted. The tiny ottsel was wearing kahki pants and green/brown shirt.

"What's going on out there?" Jak ask as an asari woman went rushing by the windows carrying boxes in her arms.

"Yeah foots, what's the big hubbub about?" Daxter said as he jumped upon a nearby table.

"The Festival of Light," she said chuckling at the two. "It's an Asari festival. I don't know much, but now that I'm Ambassador Vol'com I guess I should."

"Yeah, I heard about your promotion," Jak said as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"Feels like a damn demotion," she sighed as she looked back at the chandelier.

Tess' ears fell back as she looked up at Jak who's own ears seemed to be tipped back a bit. "Uh..." he began. "You going to go to it?" he asked sincerely.

"Have to. It's required of me to go," she said as she did air quotes for dramatic effect.

"Do you have an escort?" he inquired.

"Nope, nobody asked," she commented before her head perked up towards him. "Why?" she asked with uncertainty.

"Uh..." he began. "I mean, if you want to...I uh...I could go with you?"

"Are you asking on a date or asking if you could come?" she inquired as she raised an eyebrow.

"A...a date," he stuttered nervously.

Her eyes widened. "Oh!" she said in surprise. "Um...okay." she smiled as she walked up to him. "Sounds like fun." he chuckled as he offered his arm and began to escorted her outside to the festivities.

* * *

><p><strong>M-Angel<strong>: Sorry for not updating lately fellow readers, but the last few weeks have been hectic. Now this was just recently brought to my attention and I HIGHLY, HIGHLY recommend you read this.

Apparently the administrators of FanFiction have, as of June 4th, started to take down stories that have extreme to moderate lemons or have extreme violence. I am going to be blunt and honest here and say that that is just plain STUPID. Do you have any idea how many wonderful stories I have read that only have one or two lemons in them yet the main reason I read them is for the awesome story content and plot. You can't just take down a 100,000+ word story just because it has a lemon in a chapter that is only 1000 words long or whatever amount it is. Most of this is a copy and paste from another author but I urge you all to read this petition below, sign it, and repost this to your own story if you have any and if not, post it on your profile. So far none of the stories I have read (to my knowledge) that have this type of content have been taken off...yet. Hopefully that will continue. Please help us with this because if we make enough noise everything will hopefully return to normal. Thank-you.

Greetings to the fine folks that moderate our site.

Myself, along with many, have been writing and posting on your fine site for years now, some of the better examples of up and coming writers out there are now suddenly finding some of the stories we've come to love are at risk of being removed without the chance to even rectify our errors.

For some, that means the permanent loss ofa story. While I don't have anything that I believe violates your terms of use, there are those out there that are never able to recover a story in its original form, this is something I find to be almost worthy of a legal action, as while we cannot claim ownership of a character, the stories are OURS and simply destroying them is something that is inexcusable.

It's quite easy to simply add an MA rating, additional filters to read the stories presented here, and would cut down on hateful anonymous reviews and posts at the same time, so I have to question as to why such a thing, in all this time, it simply wasn't added?

If you're worried about falsification of a registration then have an appropriate disclaimer and then there can be non-dispute, you took your steps and the PARENTS didn't monitor their children, if that is even your concern. If it is more of a personal view or desire then please at least let people know and give them a chance to remove a story that you and yours find offensive, most people on the site are actually rather cordial when it comes to such requests.

While I cannot say for sure if this letter will even reach those that may be willing to listen, of if it's more akin to a wide spectrum purge in preparation for something bigger, please understand that you are going to be losing a LARGE number of your writers, and thus your income from a lack of readers if there is not some level of action taken to help with this situation.

For those that may agree with this, please feel free to sign on and send this to the support server, maybe we can get some movement on this.

Psudocode_Samurai

Rocketman1728

dracohalo117

VFSNAKE

Agato the Venom Host

Jay Frost

SamCrow

Blood Brandy

Dusk666

Hisea Ori

The DarkGraven

BlackRevenant

Lord Orion Salazar Black

Sakusha Saelbu

Horocrux

socras01

Kumo no Makoto

Biskoff

Korraganitar the NightShadow

NightInk

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SpiritWriterXXX

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FleeingReality

Harufu

Exiled crow

Slifer1988

Dee Laynter

Angeldoctor

Final Black Getsuga

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blood enraged

arashiXnoXkami

Masane Amaha's King

Blueexorist

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Time Hollow

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Eradona

Master-of-Mythology

Ttran2323

M-Angel 05

xoxoangii

**xoxoangii**: And I apologize for the late post, I had this chapter for a couple of days, but didn't have the chance to post it until now. *puts up poster for lost laptop charger*


	15. Chapter 15: The Light Festival

**Chapter 15**: _The Light Festival_

* * *

><p><strong>Date<strong>: _June 6, 2189_

**Location**: _Zareth / Zora_

"...the grid's generators are now eighty percent complete." Kellina said as she continued to talk to her boss back on Colelara. The grey haired and black furred male looked either annoyed or just wasn't interested in her monthly reports. The male's name was General Blair and he, along with twelve others, were the ones that ordered the attack on the Anatole and now had to pay for its cities and defense grids to be rebuilt.

"We have been working on those damnable things for the last eight months!" he yelled in a frustrated tone. "It didn't take this long for the small towns to be rebuilt. What's taking so long with the defense grid?"

"The materials come from Rannoch, the quarian homeworld, are built on Palaven, and are then put together on Anatole," she said with an exasperated, deep sigh. Pushing back a strand of blue hair from her face, she continued with the reports. "Defense satellites are at ninety percent completion. The research facilities, training facilities and animal breeding facilities are completed. Restoration of the lakes near these facilities are also completed. Compensation for soldiers killed in action or for those that went missing in action are fifty percent compensated." Upon looking up she saw a smile upon the face of her superior.

"Now that's excellent news to hear," he said grinning. "Now send a note on to the foreman and get those defense grids and satellites done." With that final word the video comm connection was terminated.

Kellina looked over to the holo clock and sighed. '_If I hurry I could make it just as they begin turning on the crystal lights,' _she thought as she locked the door to her office. As soon as the door glowed red she turned to leave when she was suddenly hit from behind and fell to the floor. As she began to drift into unconsciousness she saw a shadowy figure approach her.

* * *

><p><strong>Location<strong>: _The Light Festival_

Narima walked next to Jak wearing a blue dress with a green petticoat underneath it. Her golden necklace had been replaced by a small teardrop pendant necklace. Jak wore his usual blue tunic shirt and khaki pants. Both ottsels had taken off as soon as they had entered the asari district of Zora. All the street lights had been turned off, only to have strings of tiny lights glittering around each light pole and going over head in intricate designs, some in a spider-like web, others in swirls, and some even looking like the Milky Way galaxy itself. It was breathtakingly beautiful. The lights ranged from white to the deepest color of black, which actually gave off a purplish glow, like that of a dark eco crystal.

As the couple, like many others, came to the center of the district and found merchants selling different lamps. Some were holo lamps with a single blue crystal in the center giving off light, others were more intricate and looked to be made of pure crystal. When they came to a stage they were all greeted by the sight of a Matriarch asari standing there readying herself for a speech. It was while Narima was looking at a glowing blue crystal that she saw Faith and her turian husband, Garrus, begin to approach them."Faith!" she greeted happily as she hugged the commander. "It's so nice to see you."

Faith smiled. "Good to see you too Narima." She turned to Garrus. "I'm sure you remember my husband?"

"I do," she said as she gave Garrus a wrist clasp. "Glad to see you both in good health." Her statement got a snort out of Faith. "Am I missing something?" she inquired as she looked between the two.

"Our child was ill last night is all," Garrus groaned.

"Is all?" Faith inquired with a raised eyebrow. "I've been sick all week," she growled.

"Morning sickness?" Jak inquired, which got a groan from Faith and a slight nod from Garrus. "That sucks."

"You have no idea," was Faith's only reply.

Narima smirked. "Well you're not the only one experiencing this," she said with a smile. "I'm sure you remember Torn and Ashelin." Faith nodded. "Well Ash is now pregnant with Torn's baby." Jak groaned, which got Narima to laugh. "Let's just say Ash is making his life a living hell right now."

Garrus wrapped an arm around Faith's waist. "Well that's too late for us," she replied. "I've already done that to poor Garrus." Faith's reply caused her husband to scoff slightly. "What?"

Shaking his head Garrus answered with a chuckle. "You've never made my life a living hell mellis."

"Why do I find that hard to believe?" she asked as she cocked her head to the side towards his shoulder, thus exposing her neck and causing her husband to growl slightly at her.

Just then a clearing of the throat was heard over the PA system that was hooked up around the entire district. "Greetings and welcome to The Light Festival. My name is Matriarch Isla and I have been given the honor of telling the story of why we have this festival." The elder asari paused. "Nearly six thousand years ago the asari people were just peaking in our technology when suddenly the asteroid Sornari went through our system. It was supposed to pass peacefully through without incident, however that was also when the comet Malori was hurtling throught our system. The two celestial bodies then hit each other. Malori was sent back out of the system, but Sornari was now headed directly to Thessia." Above the Matriarch, a display of lights was showing what she described in detail. "The population of Thessia didn't know what to do. We turned to our elders and our governmental officials for help. Doom seemed to be all that could be seen when one lone asari Matriarch suggested that we power up a weapon so great and massive that it would take all of Thessia to do it. Not knowing what else to do the weapon was built. The electricity that powered all of Thessia was used in that moment to power up the weapon and blast the comet out of the sky." Suddenly the lights in the district shut down. "We knew it would be possible that we may never gain back electricity because of massive worldwide generator failure after the asteroid was destroyed. It was then that the element zero crystals, the Decoding crystals, and the violeti crystals were discovered and the lights came back on." Suddenly the districts were filled with blue, green and purple colors glowing brighter than ever before. "In honor of the memory of that asari Matriarch, her name has been forgotten to time, but her wish that it'd never be forgotten has been immortalized in the yearly festival of lights." As she ended the story, people began clapping to show their approval of how she told the story.

Narima smiled as she looked at Jak and whispered into his ear, "Wonder if anybody would take offense of me buying one of the crystal holo lights."

Jak chuckled. "The asari may think you're trying to kiss their butts for a seat of the council."

"Not just them," Narima whispered back as she nodded towards the human ambassador Udina. "I really hate that guy," she muttered as they began to walked back towards the Creassion embassy.

* * *

><p><strong>M-Angel<strong>: This is my present to you guys for my tardiness on writing these last two chapters. Now I know I'm leaving you wondering what happened to Kellina, well let's just say...it's better to leave it as a surprise. ;-)

**xoxoangii**: How awesome would that be if we really had a Light Festival..


	16. Chapter 16: New Ally

**Chapter 16**: _New Ally_

* * *

><p><strong>Date<strong>: _June 8, 2189_

**Location**: _Unknown_

As Kellina's eyes fluttered open, the first thing she saw was the darkness of the room, but as her eyes adjusted to the darkness she could see that she was in a cell. There were bars on two sides of the room, chains hooked to the floor, and the smell of fear in the air. She then saw a bump on the other side of the cell doors. The cloth on it indicated it was a living being as it was going up and down from the the being breathing. Gathering up what little bravery she had she then spoke. "H-Hello?" her voice trembled with her own fear.

"Ugh...you're awake," came the obviously male voice. Kellina's ears picked up a hint of an accent, but couldn't distinguish where she'd heard it. The lump sat up and turned its head towards her. With her eye sight as it was, she could make out small things. The being was human. His hair was long and wild looking, clothes were torn, and he smelt of blood and vomit.

"W-Who are you?" she inquired and watched as he remained in a sitting position and then leaned the back of his head against the iron bars.

"Who am I?" he repeated and then sighed. "That's...that's actually a good question." He moved his leg, and with the movement came the sounds of chains being dragged. "I've gone by a few names since..." he paused. "...since the incident." He turned his head towards her. "Some call me Charles Carmichael, while those I've saved on Omega called me Deadpool." His accent thickened as he spoke. "But only my friends call me by my real name." He heard her sigh a quiet 'oh' at this and he too sighed. "Ian," he muttered quietly. Kellina lifted her head and looked at him once more. "Ian Shaw." He turned his head back towards the wall and became quiet.

Kellina sighed, thinking he didn't want to talk anymore, and went to looking around her cell once more. "What about you?" came his voice, which now sounded tired.

"Huh?" she questioned.

"Your name," he explained. "What is it?"

"Kellina." She lifted herself off of the floor and moved near the wall next to this...Ian Shaw man. "I'm Kellina Krion." He turned his head towards her voice. Now she had a better view of this man. He had long hair that looked like it hadn't been washed in ages, a ragged looking beard, torn clothes with old blood stains on 'em and scars on his chest and forehead. "Where am I?" she questioned.

His lips parted in a sad sigh. "Hell-" was all he got to say as suddenly the lights flipped on and his attention swiftly turned towards the swishing sound of a door opening which revealed several batarians behind it.

One of the batarians walked forward with a sense of purpose. As he walked forward he pulled out a cattle prod. "Let's start this again Deadpool." The cattle prod lit up with a bluish glow. "Where is Shepard's Spectre base?"

Kellina heard Ian let out a sigh. "You're really starting to bore me Alister." His accent picking up a bit.

The batarian growled as he jabbed the prod into the humans soft skin on his chest. Ian's whole body froze up and his jaw clamped shut in hopes of not letting out a scream. The batarian, now known to Kellina as Alister, pulled the prod away. "Where is the base and where is she hiding her family?"

Ian spit into the batarian's face. As his spit slid down one of the four eyes Ian growled out, "Go to hell."

The batarian began laughing as he wiped his face with a damp rag. "This is why I've decided to get some type of motive to get you to speak." He looked behind Ian and at Kellina. "Have you been enjoying you're new _friend_?" Ian's eyes widened as he turned his head towards Kellina. They widened even further when he saw she was neither human, nor asari as he had thought. Then his eyes spotted the shock collar around her neck. "Since harming you can no longer gain us any cooperation from you..." he looked at Kellina. "I'm so sorry young one, but you are our only option." With that he turned his eye back to Ian. "Now where were we?" he began pacing. "Ah yes...where is the damn base!" he growled.

"I don't-" he was interrupted by Kellina's screams. His head turned towards her and watched as her body writhed from the pain. She then went still as the pain ended. Her breathing was now a soft pant. Ian's head wipped around. "You bastard!" he snarled and lunged towards the batarian.

"Answer the questions and you'll both be released," Alister promised.

"Yeah in body bags," Ian's seethed.

"It's your choice," was Alister's answer. "Now answer me!"

"S'kak." Ian heard the woman mutter and burst out laughing.

The two guards behind Alister gave each other confused looks at the humans bizarre outburst. Alister on the other hand growled slightly before he hit a button on his omni-tool. Kellina's screams could be heard even down the corridors outside the cell room.

* * *

><p><strong>Date<strong>: _June 9, 2189_

Kellina knew she was awake but didn't wish to open her eyes. After an entire day of Ian being questioned and her being shocked, the last thing she wanted to do was wake up. "When did your species come into the galactic community?" came Ian's strange accented voice through the darkness.

"Last year," she whispered, for anything above a whisper hurt her vocal cords. "My species is known as a Neko." Silence hung in the air. "How long have you-"

"-been here?" he finished. Leaning his head back against the metal wall he thought for a moment. "Since January of 2188."

"I was...taken June 6, 2189," she muttered silently.

"Shit," he cursed. "Bloody fuckin' hell." he groaned as he leaned forward.

"Sorry." she apolgized as she began to fall back to sleep.

"Not your fault," she heard him answer back and then the door opened and the treatments began once more.

* * *

><p><strong>Date<strong>: J_une 15, 2189_

Ian opened his eyes once more. Today was the day they would escape. After yesterday's treatments of electric shock, Kellina hadn't woken up. She was getting weaker. The food they were given was shit and he was tired of being asked the same question over and over.

After the Reaper War, Shepard had offered him a job as a Spectre; instead of taking it, like he should've, he had decided to lay low for awhile and try to live normal, which only lasted a month before he was working at the new C-sec under Commander Bailey. Everything had been fine. He worked planetside in Zora, had even been thinking of starting up a new relationship when bam! This happens. He didn't even know how this happened. One moment he's having fun with some friend and then he wakes up here.

A year and six months.

Now that he knows how long Alister has been torturing him and now that Kellina is here he may have a chance at escape. Wiggling his arm a bit he feels something sharp and pointed fall into his hand. A piece of metal is as good of a tool as any other. _Melanis would kill me if she knew the shitty mess I am in._ He felt his lips tug upwards into a smile at that thought. As if somebody was listening the cuff around his wrists snapped open.

Working quickly he also undid the chained cuffs on his legs. He then stood up, though not before falling back down because of the weakness of his legs for not having to bare his weight for the last year. "Damn," he cursed again and stood up once more and picked the lock on Kellina's cell door. Once it was open he got her cuffs off as well. "Wake up," he whispered as he shook her form as gently as possible.

Kellina rolled onto her back. "Ian?" she questioned softly as her eyes widened.

"Get up, we're leaving," he said. Her weak legs were able to support her weight after a moment of standing.

Grabbing her wrist they headed to the door, where Ian hacked into the locking system, using an algorithm he'd seen Garrus use dozens of times. As the door opened, both were shocked to see the two guards snoring slightly fast asleep. Sneaking past them was the easy part. Getting to the shuttle area, now that was going to be hard.

Bending down, Ian grabbed one of the batarian guard's Avenger assault ruffle and walked out of the room pulling Kellina next to him and smiled at the bloodshed that would inevitably happen in the escape. Part of him couldn't wait, but a small part feared they'd either die or end up somewhere worse if they were caught.

* * *

><p><strong>M-Angel<strong>: Yes, so now we know of the horrors poor Kellina had to endure. On the plus side she has Mr. Shaw to help her escape. Also I'd like to say that there's a story called _**Destiny of the Ancients**_ by: **voltagelisa** and I think it's a great story. I hope ya'll check it out.

**xoxoangii**: *sigh*... I tried so hard to read this as slowly as I can to prolong writing a journal assignment and a paper.. but I guess I should get to it :( remember to leave some love for miss m-angel!


	17. Chapter 17: The Escape

**Chapter 17**: _The Escape_

* * *

><p><strong>Date<strong>: _June 15, 2189_

**Location**: _Unknown_

As Ian and Kellina walked down the first corridor the were both surprised to find it very empty. The only doors were from the cell room they had left from and a door down the hall. Careful not to trip any hidden alarms that would be obvious they made it to the first door without incident. Waving his hand over the green holo it opened to reveal two corridors. One to the left and the second straight ahead of them. Ian peeked around the corner towards the left and saw a varren sitting with it's back towards them. '_Definitely straight,'_ he thought as he grabbed Kellina's wrist and tip toed passed the varren when he heard the all too familiar growl of a varren. Both turned their heads at the varren to see its teeth showing and it was now staring straight at them. "Run!" Ian shouted as he pulled Kellina into a full on run. The varren chased after them. Its sharp teeth bared and snapped at them frantically. Its snarls and growls were heard behind them as they turned the corner.

Kellina's eyes widened as a batarian came out of a room at the same time they rounded the corner. They nearly collided, but quick thinking on their part they swerved and missed. As they continued to run they heard the batarian yell out towards them when he suddenly screamed. The batarian must not have seen the snarling varren chasing them. The batarian had served as a distraction, and good one at that.

As they turned another corner they then came to an elevator; which unfortunately was guarded by two YMIR mechs. Both had heavy shields and machine guns attached to their arms and what looked like a flamethrower on the shoulders. "Shit," Ian cursed as he pressed himself against the wall back around the corner away from the mechs. Pulling the Avenger assault rifle close he checked the ammo to find it had a full mag within it; this gave him approximately only thirty rounds. '_Not good,'_ he thought as a plan was devised.

He then turned to see Kellina jumping up and looked upwards to see an air vent and smiled. It was just their size. He boosted Kellina upwards towards the vent. She pushed it open and pulled herself up into it. Leaning over the hole she held out her hand as he jumped towards it. He was surprised at her strength that she still had after her days of shock torture. Upon fully pulling himself into the air duct he got a glance at how small it was and suddenly was glad he wasn't clausterphobic.

After hearing Kellina shut the air vent they began moving slowly by crawling on their bellies. Turning down the duct that went towards the elevator Ian began praying that the mechs weren't equipped with heat seeking sensors. Coming to the end of the duct, which then made a ninety degree turn upwards he found latches that opened the duct to the elevator shaft. Pushing that open he found himself almost falling forward and turn his head to spot Kellina holding onto his pants. "Thanks," he whispered quietly and looked upwards to see there were two elevators. One was on the floor below them and the other looked to be on the top floor. It was then he saw a ladder across the shaft and swallowed hard. '_Now I'm glad I got over any fear of heights,'_ he thought as he grabbed a cable and began lowering himself down onto the elevator below them. Kellina followed Ian without question, knowing that if he was a friend of Shepard's, then he couldn't be too bad of a guy.

Once on solid ground, or as solid as it was going to get, Ian walked over to the shaft ladder and began to climb, with Kellina just a few steps behind him, when the elevator above began go down. Kellina, thinking fast, was barely able to fit herself between the wall and ladder. Upon seeing what she did, Ian followed suit. The elevator came to a stop at their floor. Minutes went by when suddenly an alarm began blaring.

Without thinking, Ian climbed on board the elevator that had come down and helped Kellina get on to the top of it. He then pried the vent off of the top and jumped inside. Standing below it he caught Kellina as she jumped inside. He then pressed for the first level, but not playing dumb, he pressed four other floors as well, just in case the elevator was being monitored.

Pulling the assault rifle off of his hack he got ready to shoot anything in front of them. The first floor came and the doors opened up to ten batarians all waiting for the elevator. The batarians at first did nothing, being too shocked and then went for their weapons; but it was too late. Ian had already pulled the trigger and signed their death warrants. As the doors closed, Ian looked over towards Kellina; her eyes had gone wide. Ian looked down and understood why. He was now covered in orange blood, as was the floor in front of him. '_I've seen worse,'_ he thought as he checked the ammo setting. He's used half his ammo already.

The next stop came and Ian groaned inwardly. Four batarians, two in exoskeletons with flamethrowers and the others had assault rifles. Moving quickly into a full on run towards them he shot the two with assault riffles before the other two could shoot off their flamethrowers. As soon as the two shot batarians fell their comrades shot off the flamethrowers. Ian jumped to the side then pushed himself off of the wall did a backflip over the two in the exoskeletons and shot off his remaining ammo towards them. The two seemingly forgot about the second escape as Kellina had grabbed one of the dead batarian's weapons and began shooting it off at the back of the exoskeletons. After a moment there was silence and the two batarians in the exoes fell face first to the ground.

"Nice job," Ian stated as he began picking up all the weapons with ammo still in them.

Kellina felt two bodies for any type of weapon and found a pistol on one of the batarians in the exo. She found two mags on him. Turning she saw Ian pull off an omni-tool from one of the dead batarians. "What are you-" she began but was silenced when he held up one finger.

Ian brought up a display setting and found a map on it and smiled happily. "We're on a planet," he said gleefully. "It's an old human colony that was attacked by the Collectors in 2185." She raised an eyebrow at this. "We're on Horizon," he stated. "According to this, this place is just an outpost." He sighed. "If I still had my omni-tool I could download this info on it." Looking towards the elevator he smiled at the exoes. "Help me put these two by the elevator."

"Why?" she questioned, now curious as to what he was planning.

"I'm going to blow 'em up," he smirked. "An old friend once taught me how to use a generator to blow something up. These two exoes have reactor generators. Using the elevator, I can link these two up to the doors opening."

"Fine," she muttered as they dragged 'em over to the elevator. Once there she watched Ian hook up a cord from the elevator pad and the reactors generators on the back of the exo's. -

It took Ian fifteen minutes to hook the generators up and then it took them fifteen more minutes to get to the planet surface. Kellina sighed happily as fresh cool air hit her hot sweaty body. "Thank Iss!" she shouted happily. Ian shook his head and chuckled. "What?" she questioned.

"Nothing," he said as they began walking away towards what looked like a town in the distance when they heard and felt a deep rumble under their feet. "Huh, guess it worked."

"WHAT!" Kellina screached.

Chuckling he shrugged his shoulders. "I've only ever watched it done. Never really did it myself."

Kellina's jaw dropped before suddenly Ian got pounced upon from behind. "You're telling me you've never done that! That it might not have worked! That I could've been re-kidknapped!" she yelled in his face.

"Uh...yes?" he answered.

Ian watched as her face went shock to disbelief to complete anger as she suddenly screamed and proceeded to pound his chest with her fists. "You idiot!" she scream and continued to hit his chest.

Ian just burst out laughing. This caused her ears to flatten against her head, her eyes narrow and her tail began to twitch from her anger and he did something that shocked her. He pulled her towards him and kissed her. She stopped completely and her eyes went wide with shock before she pushed him away, jump up, begin pacing back and forth and cursing in a language he didn't know which caused him to just begin laughing harder.

Standing up he walked over to her. "We're alive at least," he said, which caused her to mutter something unintelligible. "Let's go and find a way off this damn planet," he said as he walked away.

Kellina watched him walk away and smiled as she watch him. '_I could do worse,'_ she thought. "Ian, wait up!" she yelled out as she chased after him.

* * *

><p><strong>M-Angel<strong>: Yes, I've updated twice this week! Oh, just to let ya'll know August 10-15 I will be on a mini-vacation, so there won't be any updates that week.

**xoxoangii**: I'd like to go on vacation. :(


	18. Chapter 18: Freedom?

**Chapter 18**: _Freedom?_

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><p><strong>Date<strong>: _June 15, 2189_

**Location**: _Horizon_

Kelina caught up to Ian in a few short steps. Now that they were semi-safe, she took a moment to really look over him. He had both old and new burn splotches all over his arms and legs. One pant leg was completely torn off, while his shirt was completely sleeveless. His back had rips with dried blood covering it. He was currently leaning against a tree. "How are you even standing?" she asked in amazement.

"Shear luck," he mumbled and then coughed out a laugh. "Hell, I don't even know how I moved the way I did back there. Maybe adrenaline?" He looked upwards towards the sky, a cool breeze blew by rustling his shoulder length hair. "I sure as hell know what I'm doing once I get back home. Food, a bath, and a long nap." Kellina giggled as she took his arm and forced him to lean his weight on her. "I can walk by myself," he complained.

"Really?" she inqired before quickly removing his arm from her shoulder and moving away from him. She watched as he fell. "Yeah, I see what you mean," she giggled as he gave her his best glare. Holding out her hand, she helped him stand. "Don't be a baby and let me help you."

Ian sighed as he took her hand and stood up. Wrapping an arm around her neck he chuckled. "If Mel could see me now."

"Who?" she asked.

"Uh...I said that out loud?" he looked at her.

Her ears twitched. "Yep," was her reply.

"Uh, she's a...uh..good turian friend." Ian suddenly felt heat on his face before trying to push the embarressment away. "She and I were...uh...kinda in a relationship."

"Oh." Now Kellina was embarassed. He was in a relationship. "Sorry." Her ears seemed to flatten against her head. "I didn't know you were involved in a relationship."

"I don't want to talk about it." Ian winced as his side suddenly complained as pain shot up and down his left side.

"Do you have anymore bullets?" she inquired.

Ian looked at the gun he somehow had forgotten about until she had said something about it. Looking at the ammo count on the gun, he saw it had four bullets left in the clip. "Almost out." Ian looked up and saw that they had climbed a hill and at the bottom was a town. Stuffing his hand down his remaing pant leg he pulled out his old sniper scope and looked down at the village or town. Frowning he removed it from his eye.

"What is it?"

He looked at her. "There's nobody there." His voice showed how confused he was. "It's the middle of the day, there should be somebody doing something." He looked again and spotted a shuttle on a landing pad. It had the System Alliance's symble on it. '_Okay, either the batarians have killed everybody down there or-'_

"A trap?" Kellina concluded.

"I don't know." Ian sighed, but they had no choice. The shuttle could be their only way off this planet.

* * *

><p>Sneaking into the town, both Ian and Kellina were careful to not trip any hidden traps. Each home around the town had children's toys thrown around as if their owners were going to be coming back to play any moment. Some homes had sheets hanging out to be air dried. Other homes had doors left wide open. '<em>It's like the Collectors all over again,'<em> Ian thought as he leaned on Kellina. The pain in his side was worsening. '_This is too easy.'_ His eyes narrowed. His death grip on the gun tightened.

Kellina spotted the shuttle in the center town and quickly moved faster with Ian. Pushing the door open she help Ian get inside and as she got inside she felt a sharp pain in her back and cried out.

Ian's eyes widened as he saw a blood spot appear on her stomach and her eyes rolled back into her head. Grabbing her wrist he pulled her into the shuttle just as a hail of bullets flew their way. Pressing a button on the side compartment near his head, the door shut, though the bullets didn't stop being shot at them. Ian checked Kellina's pulse and found that it was racing. Her red blood was pooling behind her. Grabbing a first aid kit a ripped out some levo-grade medi-gel and slathered it onto her stomach and bandaging it. Then repeated the process on her back.

Wabbling over to the pilot controls, Ian said a short drell and turian prayer before starting the shuttle up. Still not knowing how to fly these things accurately, he just hoped against all odds that he'd been paying attention to Garrus when his turian friend had tried, multiple times, to teach him how to fly.

* * *

><p><strong>M-Angel<strong>: Yes, I am leaving ya'll right there for now. Yes, I know I'm evil, but that's why ya'll love me!

**xoxoangii**: Remember Reviews = Love! I want to know if Ian was able to get the shuttle off the ground...


	19. Chapter 19: Found

**Chapter 19**: _Found_

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><p><strong>Date<strong>: _June 16, 2189_

**Location**: _Anatole / Odar'is_

Screptus overlooked the newly reconstructed town of Odar'is. The once tiny town of four hundred and fifty was now a bustling city of twenty-eight hundred. The now finished defense grids now included a laser satellite system, a geth planetary defense platform that orbited Anatole, newly reconstructed ground planetary defense system, and a new moonbase that now had a secondary location on the moon. The Neko really did want to make nice now that they knew that this tiny planet would be well defended. The Neko government had never really given a true reason for the attacks that occurred a year ago. This left a bad taste in Shepard's mouth or at least that is what she was constantly saying. He just knew that he didn't trust this new species, even if they were trying to make up for their mistakes. This of course made him think about the First Contact War and wondered if this is what humanity first felt like when his kind had attacked them.

Shaking his head to get away from his thoughts he shifted his gaze to an approaching shuttle that barred the Spectre black and red colors with the council seal upon it. He smirked as it landed near him and out came the very pregnant Commander and her second in command, Garrus. Extending his arm he gave both a wrist-clasp and greeted them with a smile. "Welcome back." He pulled away as the two looked out towards the science station that was visible from Spectre Port which had one of the unknown ships that the Neko had appeared in parked above it.

"Have the geth and quarians figured out what species originally built those ships yet?" Faith asked as her eyes went from scanning the ship to looking at Screptus.

"Unfortunately, no," he said sadly.

"I'm just hoping that they're dead and not in cryo somewhere." Garrus' voice sounded hoarse and tired.

"Long flight I take it," he said with a raised brow plate as they made their way to the elevator which would take them to the railway where the new monorail was waiting to take them to their newly built and recently finished house down in the valley away from the Spectre station, science laboratories, and training facilities.

"No, it's just that the assigned dignitary that was in charge of watching the rebuilding of Anatole and what-not has vanished without a trace." Faith sighed as the elevator doors opened to allow them in. "She vanished the night of the festival and hasn't been seen or heard from since."

"Sounds like batarian involvement," came his crisp reply.

"Our thoughts exactly, but with their homeworld gone and barely any batarians left, except for the ones on Omega and the few who live on Zareth, that seems impossible," Garrus said this as they exited the elevator and boarded the monorail. Screptus activated the sleek white train by pressing a few buttons for coordinates to their destination and then sitting down across from the couple.

"Then who are the main suspects?" he inquired his face distorting into a frown. "Blood Pack?"

"Are disbanded and are back with their clans working with Wrex in the rebuilding process." Faith's reply was quick, meaning she'd made a call to the old Battlemaster.

"Eclipse?" was his next guess.

"What would be their reason?" she countered. "The Neko haven't attacked the asari and Kellina has no known asari Eclipse affiliations."

"I'm at a loss then," came his final answer as they sat in silence until his omni-tool went off as a message came through. Clicking the message he blinked at it in surprise and smile.

"Want to share with the class?" Faith asked in a joking manner.

Smirking he looked at Faith. "Well a few months back I received a message about a woman claiming to have had my child." This caused Garrus to chuckle. "She was claiming a child who looked nothing like me was my son. I had Doctor Solus do a DNA test and found that he was indeed mine." He paused. "Ten years ago I was stationed on Edessan. I wasn't exactly a good boy there either."

"You have a spotless record," Faith said this with a frown.

"Oh I do," he said this sounding proud. "Good soldier, bad boy complex off duty." That caused both Vakarians to chuckle. "I wasn't a...saint as humans would say."

"Who is?" Faith said this chuckling.

"Yes, but one day one of my one night stands turned into a take-care-of-that-girl-or-she'll-hurt-somebody kind of night." he explained.

This caused Garrus to curse. "Estrus?" Garrus watched the man before him wince, but nod once at the mention the female turian heat cycle. "S'kak."

"She told me a week later; nothing came of it." he shook his head. "I should have gone to the medic station with her, but I didn't."

"And now she throws this at you," Garrus finished.

"Yes." Screptus paused as they came to a stop. "But I decided that if she couldn't let me do the honorable thing years ago that I would raise my son without her poisoning his mind any longer." He smiled at the message. "My lawyer just contacted me and said that I've won full custody. That she didn't even fight for him due to her known affiliations with the Klawws gang members."

"Wow. I'm impressed." Faith chuckled. Just then all three of their omni-tools went off. "Shepard here."

A black haired Japanese woman appeared on the screens of the all three omni-tools. "Oh good, I caught you three in the same area," she said.

"What's happened Kasumi?" Garrus inquired.

"Vol'com found an old Systems Alliance shuttle that was giving off a distress signal near the old Horizon colony," she said.

"Was there anybody in there?" Screptus asked next.

"Yes," she replied. "Both were injured though. She sent me pictures which I'm relaying to you Shep." With that a new message appeared in Faiths inbox. Closing her conversation with Kasumi she brought it up and immediately she turned back towards the monorail. "How badly injured was the female?" She sat back down as Garrus keys in the coordinates for the port while Screptus contacted Joker to tell him to get the crew back to the ship.

"Bad," Kasumi replied. "She almost died. Besides her main bullet wound injury, it looked as if she was tortured."

"Rape?" Faith asked as her knee began bouncing from her nerves.

"Unknown," Kasumi replied.

Faith looked at the multiple pictures of the unconscious male. "The male?" she asked her throat sounding tight.

"Was tortured beyond belief," was Kasumi's relatively tight reply.

"Tell Vol'com we're coming to her," she said as the train came to a stop.

"She's on the Creassion homeworld of Gi'ah." she said. "I'll send Joker the coordinates." With that Kasumi ended the conversation.

As they entered the Normandy, Faith saw the crew reboarding immediately. Garrus touched her shoulder. "Who is it?" he asked as Screptus turned to Faith.

"Kellina," she said sharply.

Garrus' eyes narrowed; he knew she wasn't saying something. "Who else?" he felt his chest tighten as soon as the words left her mouth. "Ian Shaw." And that was all she said as she headed to the CIC with both turrians hot on her heels.

* * *

><p><strong>M-Angel<strong>: Sorry for the extremely long wait on this chapter. I've been busy with lots of other stuff...

**xoxoangii**: me too! it's been a crazy several weeks... but we hope you like the chapter! :)


	20. Chapter 20: Wounded

**Chapter 20**: _Wounded_

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><p>Ian Shaw had almost died nearly a dozen times in his life since first coming to the Citadel in early 2180. Usually it was his fault, even he'd admit to that; but being tortured by batarians for no good reason? Now that wasn't his fault. He had given up all hope of escaping, that is until Kellina came. Why did the batarians kidnap her? He didn't know for sure. Once the two of them had not only escaped from imprisonment, but then found a shuttle off the planet; he'd been sure his luck had changed. However minutes after they'd arrived to the shuttle and began to get onboard, Kellina had been shot. Ian had acted quickly, even with his own injuries, he hadn't thought twice about helping her. Somehow he'd gotten them not only airborne, but through the relay. He however; didn't put in the right coordinates and had ended up getting a bit turned around. So with Kellina dying from her injures and he soon losing consciousness because of a head injury days ago he'd didn't think they'd live without help.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Date<strong>: _June 17, 2189_  
><strong>Location<strong>: _Scorpious System / Gi'ah  
><em>  
>Searing pain shot through Ian's eyes as he opened them the first time in what felt like days. Light shot out through a window hitting him squarely in the eyes, thus making him hiss out in pain. The only other being in the room was a nurse. She quickly walked over to the window and pulled the blinds down. Groaning, Ian once again tried to open his eyes. This time he was more successful. Upon opening his eyes he saw the image of the nurse. She was small waisted, with a white and green uniform on. She had bright blue eyes and short cropped green hair. Oh and she had long pointed elf-like ears. <em>I'm dead and have gone to some damn imaginary place in...Who am I kidding I've gotta be high on something.<br>_  
>"Good morning," the nurse said with a kind smile as she began to check the medical instruments next to his bed. "Your BP is a little high this morning Mr..."<p>

"Shaw...I'm Ian Shaw," he said as his british accent thickened from nervousness. "I'm dreaming...right?"

The woman's eyes seemed to laugh at this. "No, you're not dreaming. I'm very real Mr. Shaw."

Ian's eyes then scanned the room he was in. It looked like any hospital room he'd been in. It was white and smelled of bleach and disinfectant. He turned his attention back to the nurse. "How'd I get here?"

"Captain Vol'com found your ship. When she boarded your shuttle she found you and a female neko both badly injured," she explained as she began to walk around his bed to his left side. "You have many lacerations to your back, chest, and legs. You had first and second degree burns everywhere on your body." She paused as she took off the bandages on his arms revealing slightly pink skin.

"However it would seem that you are a very fast healer Mr. Shaw." She smiled as he looked at his pink skin with wide eyes.

"How?" he asked in amazement.

"My kind has a unique element on our homeworld called Eco. It comes in four main colors of blue, green, red, and yellow." She paused.

"Whenever somebody sick or injured comes into one of our hospitals we test that persons eco tolerance. You, surprisingly, have a very high tolerance to it. So we were about to use the healing abilities that come from green eco."

"How is it possible for me to have this...tolerance?" he asked disbelieving what she was saying.

"We don't know." She then unbandaged his chest and legs, which revealed some scars, but mostly fresh pink skin. "The old scars will not disappear, but the newer wounds we were able to heal." She looked at him sweetly.

"What happened to Kellina?" he watched the nurses eyes sadden. "Is she..."

"No, she isn't dead, but the wounds on her body were so severe." She sighed. "She'll never walk again."

Suddenly Ian heard a throat clear and looked over to see Garrus standing there with a very pregnant Faith. Ian's eyes widened in shock. "Wow Garrus, didn't think you'd figure that one out so quick." He gave his best friend one of his cocky smirks.

Faith rolled her eyes and chuckled. "What can I say, I just worked at it until she'd yell no more," he smirked back, Faith's face now was red with embarrassment.

Clearing her throat, she looked at Ian. "It's good to see that you're alive Shaw."

"Yeah, guess I'm not as easy to break as they thought I'd be." He sighed.

"Who did this and why?" Garrus asked, his voice turning deadly.

Ian knew that voice. It was the voice that he and the squad on Omega had followed. The voice of Archangel. "They were batarians. They're on a former human world, Horizon...I think. They wanted know about the Spectres, about Archangel's greatest weakness, and few other things; but hell I didn't know the answers."

"Why'd they go after you?" Garrus leaned back against the wall as Faith sat in the visitors chair.

"I figured that they thought I'd know the location of your bases because I was friends with Archangel and his mate." He gave his own sigh as he leaned back into the pillows again. His wounds may have healed, but his back was killing him.

The two looked at him. "You okay?" Faith asked him looking sincerely worried.

"Yeah, give me a few weeks and I'll be back to my old self." He sighed. "Be nice if Mel was here. I know she'd kick my ass back into gear."

Garrus chuckled. "You know it."

Faith stood as Garrus pushed himself off of the wall. "We'll be staying until you're discharged." She said. "But I'm starting to get tired and Garrus has to go talk to Vol'com about the exact location of where she found you and Kellina."

Ian nodded. "Yeah, okay." He watched them leave and closed his eyes for a second only to see the batarian torturer. His eyes snapped back open. _Yeah, not going back to sleep yet._ He looked around and saw a holographic display on the nightstand next to his bed and began playing with it. He quickly found the television button, which turned the holographic television screen on across the room, which had human english subtitles already on at the bottom if the screen.

* * *

><p><strong>Date<strong>: _June 17, 2189_  
><strong>Location<strong>: _Zareth / Ontoro  
><em>  
>The city of Ontoro was mostly a krogan settlement because of the mines and such. There were a few drell and elcor also living in the city. So it wasn't quite unusual to see a drell female running through the stone covered streets at night as the female ran through the city, her feet barely made a sound as they came in contact with the ground. So it wasn't any surprise that when she came to her targets they didn't even know she was watching and listening to them from high up on a stone house roof. Before her was a batarian with a jagged scar down the side of his face. Behind him were five guards. In front of him was a krogan with his two guards.<p>

"Did you get the information yet Irrlock?" the scarred batarian inquired.

"Yes and no," the krogan leader said. "We may or may not know where the Spectre base is, but it's going to cost you even more Seldar."

"What do you mean!" the batarian yelled. "We already agreed on the price."

"My clan leader just joined clan Urdnot who got us the genophage cure. We want more money if we're to go against Urdnot's Spectre ally."

"What's the price then?" Seldar asked

"A million credits should do just fine." Irrlock smiled at the batarian.

The batarian growled. "Fine!" he spat out. "But if these coordinates are wrong, you'll be dead."

"I'm not the one who is going to start a war I cannot win." The krogan laughed as he typed into his omni-tool. "There. You now have Shepard's home."

The batarian sent the money to the krogan. "And you have your money." The two eyed one another.

The drell female turned on her omni-tool and spoke quietly into it. "This is Officer Salene. The exchange has occurred. Move in!" And with that, a once quiet night in Ontoro turned into a bloodbath as C-sec officers moved in on their enemy.

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><p><strong>M-Angel<strong>: Yes, I finally update this story! *does a mini dance*  
><strong>xoxoangii<strong>: yay! *does mini dance with M-Angel*  
><strong>M-Angel<strong>: So Happy New Year everybody. Hope this year is better than last year for everyone. So I'm going to go work on my other story now. Tell me what you thought about this chapter.  
><strong>xoxoangii<strong>: Please R&R! And hapy new year!


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